The Silent Dragon: Children of The Dragon Nimbus #1 (5 page)

CHAPTER 7

D
A!
GLENNDON SUMMONED his father the moment Jaylor ducked through the shimmer in the air that marked the magical barrier protecting the family clearing. He came from the direction of the University, on the far side of the kitchen garden from the cabin, leaning heavily against his twisted staff as if tired—almost collapsed in on himself. His long auburn queue needed re-dressing, badly. Clear evidence that his day in closed session with the Circle of Master Magicians had been grueling. The staff gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, almost quivering on its own, the aftermath of the many, many spells channeled through it within the last few hours. The wood grain had twisted and braided back on itself a dozen times over in a unique pattern—Da’s magical signature.

In the background, his mother’s gentle and ever-present song faded to a long wistful note and her magic closed the barrier with a snap. She made magic every time she trilled a note. A simple magic reserved for women who nurtured a family. But Mama made it something more, something powerful and awesome.

Da lifted his head and smiled at her sweet song. His muscles seemed to fill out again, like dried fruit soaked in brandy resuming their natural shape. Mama did that to people. Gave them back to themselves with a song.

Da . . . da . . . ah . . . ah!
Glenndon winced and covered his eyes with one hand as his telepathic hail bounced off his father’s psychic barrier and back into his own brain with the force of a flaming arrow.

His grip weakened on his heavy ax as his father’s grip on his staff firmed. Slowly, Glenndon placed the blade on the ground, rather than drop it and dull the edge or chop off his own foot.

“You have to say the words, with your mouth and your throat, Glenndon,” Jaylor said. Again. For the twenty thousandth time. “Not every person has the power to receive or project thought as you do. Not everyone will understand you.”

This is important!

So far, everyone at the University of Magicians and every visitor to the home clearing had understood Glenndon. So far, every person had received his communication, and those who could not reply the same way, spoke. He understood spoken words.

But forming them? The scars blocking his throat grew thicker every time he tried, making him feel the need to cough and hack them out. But he couldn’t. They were permanently buried inside him.

He’d tried. Every day since he’d broken free of the epidemic fever. He’d tried and tried again until he spat blood. He was afraid to let the words jump from his mind to his throat and out his mouth. So much easier just to
think
his words and send them outward than risk the choking and bleeding.

“If it is important enough you will speak,” Da said wearily, rubbing his eyes. “The healers tell me there is nothing wrong with you anymore.” He made to move past Glenndon toward the hut and his supper.

I don’t understand how to do it. Help me to understand.
Glenndon nearly shouted. The blast of his mental voice made Da cringe and lean more heavily on his staff.

“I can’t, Glenndon.” Da gritted his teeth, still trying to rub away the pain behind his eyes. “I’m not a healer. I can’t do anything more than I have.” Anger turned Da’s face red and his voice rose. That happened a lot lately. And not just with Glenndon. Any apprentice or journeyman magician who faltered in set tasks risked Jaylor’s wrath and certain punishment; the nastiest, dirtiest, most disgusting chore he could think up—like cleaning up after journeymen who’d celebrated a tricky achievement with far too much ale. Or sluicing out the University drains.

Glenndon backed up three paces. Not that he ever thought his father would resort to blows. But he let Da know that he feared and respected the Senior Magician and Chancellor of the University.

“The best physicians in the realm tell me there is nothing physically wrong with you, Glenndon. The scarring is fading to near nothing. Why won’t you speak?”

Who wanted to hear the inarticulate and painful croaks his throat made after hearing the music and laughter in his mother’s voice?

Glenndon shrugged. Finally he formed the question. “The dragons?” he mouthed.
They need our help!

But no sound emerged.

“The dragons have spoken to me. Your conversations with a juvenile can’t have as much information as Baamin, the venerable blue-tip. Learning to speak clearly is more important than anything Indigo told you.”

But . . .

“But you and Lukan have traded chores again. He should be chopping wood, building up his muscles. Magic is hard work. We need strong bodies as well as strong minds and talent. And you should be working with the three newest apprentices, not him. Go to them, now. Teach them the proper use and preparation of protective circles by sunset. Two hours from now.” He looked up at the position of the sun just at the top of the tree canopy surrounding the clearing. “If those three mind-blind brats can’t make you speak I don’t know what will.” Da sighed and his shoulders slumped in defeat.

Apprentice work. I’ve been completing journeyman duties for two years! At least let me have a staff,
Glenndon pleaded as he nodded toward his father’s essential tool of magic.

“You’ve been doing
master work
for half a year without a staff,” he said evenly, looking toward the cabin rather than at his son.

Will you make me a journeyman?
Glenndon asked hopefully.

“Not until you learn to speak. You belong neither on journey nor in the Circle until you can speak out loud. Now go work with your new students. They might surprise you with what they can and cannot do, if you teach them correctly.”

Glenndon raised his eyes in alarm. Not one of the newest apprentices had a scrap of talent. But their families suspected they might. Their villages persecuted them and cast them out, because they
might.
So the University took them in. As they had taken in so many these last fifteen years—including those who brought the putrid sore throat across the country and killed many. Some learned a trade and settled in new places where no one knew them or their reputation. A few, those too traumatized by the persecution and torture to live outside the protective circles of the University, stayed on, working at whatever they could.

The University grew, out here in the foothills of the Southern Mountains. The wooden buildings were now almost as large and well populated as the stone edifice had been in Coronnan City before . . .

Before the dragons flew away and took their magic with them.

The dragons had come back. But the people of Coronnan still hated and feared solitary magicians—those who couldn’t gather dragon magic. In their minds all magicians were rogue.

Glenndon picked up the ax and split a log. The best way to get out of a hopeless task, like teaching the “mind-blind brats” magic, was to ignore it. Pretend he hadn’t understood his father’s words.

“No.” Da stayed his arm with a fierce grip. Then he yanked the ax out of Glenndon’s hands. No matter how tall and strong Glenndon grew, his father was taller, broader across the shoulders, and stronger, because he controlled his physical and magical strength.

“You understood me, Glenndon. I saw it in your eyes and your mind. Get yourself into a clean robe and begin teaching those boys. Let Lukan chop wood for a while. Maybe the physical work will give him an appreciation for patience.”

Glenndon opened his eyes wide in question. How could Da block out his projected thoughts and yet keep his mind open enough to listen to his private ones?

“Your old man still has a few tricks.” Da quirked a smile. “Now get to work. Your proper work.”

An insistent thrum set all of Glenndon’s senses to humming.

Someone comes.

Da raised an eyebrow. “Your mama hasn’t said so . . .”

“Jaylor, Glenndon, someone is coming up the hill. I don’t recognize him,” Brevelan called from the doorway. The waning sun turned her red hair to the color of living flame, hiding the strands of silver nestled in the tidy knot tied at her nape with a green ribbon that matched her gown. Outlined by the doorway that Glenndon and his Da had to stoop to pass through showed just how tiny she was. Glenndon tried to remember when he’d grown a full head taller than she.

Her youngest children, Jules, age two, and Sharl, age six, clung to her skirts, peeking from behind her. Jules had his thumb firmly planted in his mouth. Brevelan showed signs of expecting another but had said nothing yet. Her seventh. A lucky number. But according to the dragon lore passed from one senior apprentice down the line to the newest, Shayla had given Brevelan a dragon-dream of only six children.

All of Glenndon’s younger brothers and sisters had either their mother’s bright red hair or their father’s darker auburn. Except Glenndon. He was the only blond in the family. Sometimes he wondered if he truly belonged in this family any more than he did on Journey or in the Circle of Master Magicians. Maybe he was the outside seventh and the new one in Mama’s belly was the sixth that belonged to the family.

Glenndon waved acknowledgment to his mother. Now if she demanded he speak, he might make more of an effort to break through the barrier between his mind and his throat. But she never asked. She accepted and loved each of her children without question or reservation, allowing each to develop naturally.

“The barrier around the clearing is tuned to your mother,” Da mused. “When did you start picking up its vibrations before she did?”

The day I put a crack in it chasing a witchball you made for me when I was three,
Glenndon replied.

“Well, best you go see who invades our privacy.”

Everyone in the family could pass through the barrier at will. But only Brevelan and Glenndon seemed able to open the portal for others. Da used to do it. But Glenndon had patched it one too many times and now his father’s magic no longer harmonized with its unique vibration.

With Da close at his heels, Glenndon walked softly toward the edge of the clearing, beyond the vegetable and herb garden into a small copse where an ancient everblue tree grew through a split boulder. The marker rock stood as tall as Glenndon’s hip and as big around as a small hut. Close by he heard the creek chuckle as it rushed to tumble over a six-foot fall.

Glenndon sent out a mental query.

The image of a stocky man of middling years wearing royal green and gold, with a tight and intricately braided, four-strand court queue shocked him. His purpose in coming lay buried in a sealed letter inside his tunic next to his heart. Grim determination clouded the man’s aura to all other emotions, even fatigue, after climbing the hill from the village. That magic seal fueled his determination.

Quickly Glenndon flashed the image to Da, uncertain how to react. He didn’t know this man in royal livery. Yet the family counted King Darville as a friend. Mama kept in touch with Queen Rossemikka through a flame and scrying bowl. Glenndon vaguely remembered having met the king once. A long time ago.

Da smiled. He waved for Glenndon to open the portal.

Are you sure?

“We will always welcome Fred, Glenndon,” Da said, the smile still on his face.

Who?

“Fred, King Darville’s personal bodyguard.”

Glenndon didn’t like that explanation any better than not knowing the man’s identity and purpose. He prepared a spell of confusion to throw at this Fred the moment he crossed the barrier. Then cautiously he hummed an agitated sequence of notes.

The faint shimmer in the air, so ever-present he barely noticed it anymore, faded. Fred leaned on the tree-split boulder, blinking in surprise.

“Oh,” he said. “I’ll never get used to you people not being there, then suddenly big as life in front of me.”

“Welcome, Fred. Come in, come in. Can we offer you hospitality? What brings you here?” Da’s deep baritone voice grew lighter with hearty good humor. He extended his arm. He and Fred clasped elbows and bowed in ritual greeting.

“I forget my manners, my Lord Jaylor, Senior Magician.” Fred dropped his grip on Da’s arm and stepped back a pace, swept his cap off his head and bowed formally.

Glenndon took a defensive position behind Da’s left shoulder, facing slightly outward. That gave them nearly a full circle of spell throwing room.

He kept ready the confusion spell, followed by a fireball that itched for release. He didn’t want to be surprised by anyone who might be hiding behind that magical glamour surrounding the letter in Fred’s pocket.

Fred stepped forward, eyes darting right and left until he’d examined the entire clearing. His eyes went wide as he took in Glenndon.

“Stargods! I didn’t believe it,” he gasped.

Da shifted his gaze from Fred to Glenndon and back again. “Believe what you want. Then forget it entirely,” Da growled like an angry saber cat.

Believe what?
Glenndon asked.

His father just scowled at him, still angry over what Fred had said. Or not said.

“Yes, my lord.” Fred bowed again and looked toward the simple log house at the center of the clearing. His entire face brightened with a smile when he noted Mama. He nearly ran to stand before her at the threshold.

Glenndon hummed a different sequence of notes to close the clearing barrier even as he dogged the man’s footsteps.

Da ambled along in their wake. His mind projected happiness at seeing an old friend, and a bit of wariness. He seemed blind to the alien magic Fred carried in his pocket.

“Welcome, Fred,” Mama said, holding her arms wide for an embrace of greeting.

“My lady.” Fred bowed formally, two paces in front of Brevelan. Then he advanced those last two paces to hug her heartily.

“You are probably the only person left alive who calls me by title,” Mama laughed. But her chuckles carried a musicality that invoked a protective spell.

Glenndon stopped short. Jaylor paused just behind his left shoulder.

Titles?

An old custom to ennoble the Senior Magician and his wife. From before the Leaving. Must be official king’s business for him to invoke titles,
Jaylor returned on a tight beam.
I don’t like it.
He took a wider stance, bracing himself to face the unknown.