The Wandering Dragon (Children of the Dragon Nimbus) by Irene Radford Page A

His face vanished. Her glass became inert and sank to the bottom.
    The room dimmed and darkness seemed to press tightly against her head. Without knowing what she did, how long she stared at the candle willing Lukan to come back, she knew he could not. Would not.
    Rowing to Sacred Isle at twilight and spending a night there by himself, without the comfort of a fire or food or any spells at all, he had to wait, meditating and praying until dawn. Then if the Stargods found him worthy of becoming a true journeyman, one of the trees would sacrifice a branch and drop it where he’d find it and know it for his staff.
    A spluttering sound alerted her that the candle guttered. She’d sat too long, lost in the flickers that seemed more important than anything else. Slowly she roused herself. She knew from experience that moving too quickly after one of her spells would trigger a headache that would fell her for days, making the smallest crack of light, or whispers in the rooms beneath her, send pain stabbing through her eyes. She could eat nothing during one of those headaches and vomited every potion Maigret plied her with. All she could do was wait out the pain and endure.
    As she’d endured the beating by the men of her home village who tried to force her slight magic to desert her. Ignorant people more afraid of magic than they were of the law that might hang them for murder. The journeyman magician who rescued her—not
her
journeyman, another anonymous one—had called down the law on her village. Because she lived, her persecutors kept their lives, but many lost the hands that had wielded the blows.
    Only Maigret knew how much damage the men had done to her. Only she knew that these lapsing spells and the headaches were a result of blows to her head. Everyone in the University knew about her nightmares. She screamed loud enough to wake the dead some nights. Less so since her journeyman had begun helping and tutoring her. Little by little, she regained control of her life and her mind.
    Not fast enough.
    She didn’t know which was worse, the headaches or the nightmares. During one, on the first night she’d spent here in the protection of the University, she’d blackened the eye of her bedmate while she thrashed, trying to protect herself from the dream memories. The next night she slept alone up here away from everyone, where her dreams would not wake or harm any of the other girls.
    Solitude suited her. Solitude made it possible for her to scry with Lukan.
    Lukan. Scry.
    She had to deliver a message. What was it now . . . ?

CHAPTER 6
    L UKAN SAT WITH his back against a sturdy tree. He didn’t know what kind of tree. He didn’t even know if he’d found the central clearing around a pond where the Stargods had first landed on their silver cloud of fire. He smelled water. He sensed open space. The tree’s roots offered an almost comfortable seat and the trunk cradled his back nicely.
    Neither stars nor moon offered light through the thick cloud cover. So far, the rain held off. He expected it to release a heavy downpour near dawn.
    “I should expect better than a cold and uncomfortable return to the port?” he asked himself. “I bet Glenndon had an easier time on this island than I will.”
    An almost chuckle whispered through the tree canopy. “Lily could understand you,” he called up to the rustling leaves. “I haven’t her affinity with dirt and growing things.”
    Another whisper, equally amused.
    “Did Glenndon have a . . . an adventure while he was here?” he asked, to hear the sound of his own voice rather than endure any more silent meditation. Sitting still on the ground had never been easy for him.
    Another whisper stirred in his mind. Along with a shiver of unease.
    Had the tree said “Up”?
    That was easy. He’d always gone up when troubled or needing to think. Up a tree, up on the roof, climb up a cliff to a plateau, just so long as he put distance between himself and the ground and got