Dragon Nimbus Novels: Vol II, The

by Irene Radford

  “Good. Now we must get to work. Is the map table ready?” Nimbulan asked, easily assuming authority over the Commune and Powwell.

  “I don’t think we will have enough power,” Nimbulan said, resigned to the fact that the border of Coronnan was just too long.

  “Can we leave gaps over the impassable parts of the mountains?” Quinnault paced around and around the three-dimensional map built into a sand table. The map of Coronnan measured as long on each side as two tall men—large enough for details of rivers and hills, towns and forests.

  Nimbulan rubbed his eyes wearily. The women had gone to bed. Most of the magicians as well. Once the strategy and details of the spell were worked out by Nimbulan the Battlemage, and his king, the others would rise to support them.

  He wished Myri could be a part of the spell. Her subtle healing touch just might finish off the rough edges, make it a wall to preserve peace rather than a mere deterrent to war. Life versus death. Love of Coronnan rather than hatred of their enemies.

  “Without a focus, we can’t do more than push back the enemy for a day, maybe two. With a focus we could barricade the border with SeLenicca but not the northern coast or the southern border with Rossemeyer.” And the pass that leads to Hanassa where Moncriith claimed the title of Kaaliph.

  “What if we randomly rotated the wall so that invaders never knew where it would or would not be?” Quinnault offered.

  “Too time and energy consuming. All my magicians would be engaged in doing nothing but maintaining the wall. We wouldn’t be available for healing, communication, soil fertility—nothing but border patrol. That would defeat the whole purpose of the Commune, to make magic available to all of Coronnan for the benefit of all of Coronnan.”

  “The dragons are waking. Maybe they have a solution.” Quinnault cocked his head, like Myri did, listening.

  “I need them to fly over the border and tell us precisely where each of the armies is at the moment we set the spell. Presuming we can.”

  “Shayla is landing in the courtyard of the school.” Myri wandered in, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning. She hadn’t slept much either.

  Nimbulan welcomed her into his arms. He rested her head against his shoulders as she fought sleep.

  “Why is Shayla coming here?” he asked as he kissed her forehead.

  “She has a gift,” Lyman said as he bounced into the room with a disgusting amount of energy. “She says she found your focus.”

  “Glass. The dragons have made something of glass.” He remembered the whisper across his mind last night as he pondered the problem.

  “That would be my guess,’ Lyman smiled. Age lines dissolved from his face.

  “Are you getting younger, old man?” Nimbulan peered at his friend.

  “I wish,” he replied and winked at Myri. “I have too many lifetimes to complete for that to happen. Come, come, we mustn’t keep Shayla waiting. She’s anxious to get on with this business, so she can get to the work of building a nest for her next litter. A new litter of dragons. I remember the last one, over twenty years ago. . . .” He looked sharply around at the others to see if they had noticed his reverie.

  “You were there at the birthing,” Myri said, eyes alight. She didn’t show any surprise that a human had been allowed to view Shayla’s babies when man-made magic had injured her and caused her premature labor and subsequent stillbirth of fourteen of the young. Myri and her familiar Amaranth had been two of the six survivors—asexual purple-tipped dragons with a distinct destiny separate from the dragon nimbus.

  “Of course, my dear. I gave you and Amaranth your names.”

  “What is he talking about?” Nimbulan whispered to Myri. “Why was he there?”

  Myri smiled obliquely. “Dragons have to have some secrets, Lan.”

  “Enough reminiscence.” Lyman clapped his hands with enthusiasm. “Shayla commands our presence.” He ushered them out of the palace and across the bridge to School Isle amid a growing throng of citizens. Wide-eyed and gape-jawed people stumbled over each other as they watched the sky rather than their feet.

  Nimbulan realized that dawn had come around again and he hadn’t slept more than a few hours in the last four days. Why did dragons always insist on presenting their surprises at this awful hour?

  “Because the light makes them appear more spectacular,” Myri answered his unvoiced question.

  “I must be tired to lose control of my thoughts.” Grimly he scrubbed his face with his palm, hiding a yawn behind it. At least he’d eaten his fill every few hours, restoring some of his energy.

  “Your thoughts are always close to mine, Lan. You can’t hide anything from me.” She squeezed his arm affectionately.

  “Apparently, your anger toward me for leaving you alone so long has evaporated. I wish my guilt would fade as quickly. I have a lot to make up for.” He held her tight against his side, glad to have one complication removed from his life. “As soon as this is over, I will send journeymen on quest to rescue Rollett and Kalen. This time I will stay by your side.”

  “A good plan, Nimbulan. Keeping my family together is more important than venting my anger.”

  “I’ll remember that you are listening if I should ever be stupid enough to look at another woman.”

  “You’d better not even think about it.” She punched his arm affectionately.

  He winced. His nerves were worn thin and everything hurt—her reminder of their problems, her punch on his arm, and the glare of a dozen rainbows streaming from the sky into the courtyard of the school. The courtyard that at one time had contained the well of ley lines.

  “What ails you, Lan?” Myri caressed his arm with healing touches.

  “I’ll be all right when I have eaten again and slept a bit,” he said, distracted by the sight of six adult dragons cavorting through the air like dandelion fluff. They soared high, dove with incredible swiftness, turned in a tail length and flew loops around each other. Their play contained an element of deep satisfaction and joy that he’d never seen in them. The males seemed to glow brighter along their colored wing veins and horns, the primary colors pulsed deeper and truer, not fading into obscurity with the rest of their crystal fur.

  Shayla was easiest to pick out in the happy antics. Every color in the spectrum rippled along her fur in constantly shifting prisms. Waves of deep satisfaction washed over the dragons, spilling into the crowd of human onlookers.

  Nimbulan remembered a day when he, too, had felt like that. The day he first made love to Myri.

  His need for sleep vanished, replaced with a deeper need. He wrapped his arm around Myri’s shoulders, pulling her closer, tucking her warmth against his side, inhaling her sweet fragrance.

  “No time for sleep.” Lyman handed him half a round loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese. “We’ve a spell to work and an invasion to repulse.”

  “I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Nimbulan mumbled around a huge bite of bread. Soft and warm from the oven, it nearly melted as he chewed. Energy began to creep back into his veins. “Did the dragons find us a focus?”

  “I believe so.” Lyman pointed to the center of the courtyard, nearly bouncing in his enthusiasm.

  There, atop the mortar that obscured from all senses the ley line well, rested a huge black table. Round, sitting on a single pedestal. Gleaming black, the rising sun glinted off the seamless surface.

  “It’s made of glass! Black glass,” Nimbulan shouted, running to examine the treasure more closely. “Black glass forged by dragon fire! We can work the spell.”

  Chapter 39

  “I am frightened of this spell, Shayla,” Myri confided. (You have done this before, daughter,) Shayla replied as she rose on a thermal above the courtyard

  Myri looked at the large glass table, a wondrous treasure, rather than at the dragon who had given birth to her spirit but not her body. Only one or two sources of sand clean enough to produce usable glass existed in Kardia Hodos. Man-made fires didn’t burn hot enough to u
se the other sands. But dragon breath did.

  (You must be the eyes of the magicians. They cannot view the placement of their wall otherwise. You must let your mind fly with us.)

  “When I flew before, it was always with Amaranth, my twin, my otherself. I knew his mind better than I knew my own. We blended easily and he always returned me to my own body afterward.” She knew this task was essential to the success of Nimulan’s spell and the safety of the kingdom. She knew it. And yet she feared the outcome would change everything she held dear.

  The outcome or the process? Dread hung around her like an unwelcome ghost.

  (Now you are alone in your fragile human body. Blend with me, and we will soar through the clouds. Trust me to know when the time is right to end the joining.)

  “How will I feed the images we see to Nimbulan?” She looked to where the Commune placed chairs around the table, crowding them together to accommodate all of the masters, journeymen, and apprentices. An aura of power began to pulse stronger and stronger as the chain of magicians grew. Like heat waves on the desert sands, the power spread. It pushed outsiders away from the table, the joined magicians, and the spell.

  Nimbulan sat in the place closest to the center of the school buildings. Lyman sat on his right, Scarface to his left, and a timid Powwell sat close by. Yaala, bathed and clothed in a fine gown of pale green, stood with Quinnault and his foreign queen. She looked like Yaassima’s daughter now, a princess in exile rather than the scruffy desert rat who haunted the chambers of the pit. Maarie Kaathliin held Amaranth so that Myri would be free to link communication between the dragons and the magicians. The new queen cooed at the baby and played with her lovingly, absolutely enchanted with the child.

  Maia remained inside the school where she couldn’t spy on the proceedings. Mundane guards made sure she didn’t contact Piedro or any of her clan.

  Myri need not concern herself with her companions and family if something should go wrong with the spell. She knew in her heart and her head that something would go wrong that would change the life path of all those involved in the spell.

  (The silver cord that connects you to Nimbulan will channel your visions to him. Do not fear, daughter. We will guard you well on this spirit journey.)

  Myri knew that. She recognized her questions as a stall. If she released herself to the dragons, she might never come back to her own body.

  Yes. She finally recognized the human frame as her body. She was Myrilandel, a unique blending of the dragon Amethyst and the human girl. She wanted to remain human, to live with and love Nimbulan, to raise her daughter and bear more children.

  Flying with the dragons would jeopardize her anchors to this life.

  (There is no other way, Myrilandel. Nimbulan needs you to be his eyes.)

  “I know.” Myri placed her hand on Nimbulan’s shoulder to physically link herself to him. The power building around the table parted slightly, as if a living being with a consciousness, allowed her hand to penetrate only as far as her husband. No magic or love in all of Kardia Hodos could link her to the swelling communal magic.

  Unconsciously she shifted her feet until she found a comfortable stance. Awareness of the ley lines beneath the paving tingled through her feet. Nimbulan said he couldn’t sense the power within the Kardia any more. She enjoyed the contact with the ground—a solid and firm anchor to the land and her life. He relied on the ephemeral power drifting in the air that she couldn’t sense at all.

  Their magic centers had shifted. A year ago, she sought flight with the dragons, and he found his magic rooted in the Kardia.

  (Now.)

  Myri closed her eyes and concentrated on the thoughts of the dragon mother of the nimbus. A continuous patter of gossipy comments about the weather, the taste of last night’s meal, and the beauty of the clouds dribbled into her mind. With the words, came pictures, wonderfully vivid pictures. Gradually the words faded, and the pictures came to the front of her vision.

  Her focus tilted and spun as her mind gazed down upon the wide stretch of bay glittering in the morning sunshine. Her perspective shifted to an aerial view, and she realized that she looked down upon the string of islands that made up the capital city.

  Shayla flew lower. In their shared eyesight, they saw individuals with recognizable features and auras. A circle of lives around the wonderful glass table. Magic inhabited the men and spilled into the table, growing by leaps and bounds like a living thing.

  One life stood out, separate from the others and the magic and yet . . . connected.

  Suddenly, Myri realized she looked down upon herself, standing beside Nimbulan and the Commune. Beside, not amid.

  Acknowledgment of her separation from the men severed her last mental contact with her human body. She and Shayla flew west, upriver, toward the trading city and the mountain pass where an invasion had already begun.

  Nimbulan settled into his trance as he focused on the pattern of sunlight on glass. Waves of different colors and textures of black evolved before his eyes. His magic-heightened senses became aware of all the different minerals that made up the glass. He felt the fire that melted them together into a new, cohesive substance. The dragon flames transformed them into something new, bigger and more interesting without damaging his unique individuality.

  He recognized that communal magic was like dragon fire on sand. Each magician remained an individual, yet bonded and changed into something more powerful and cohesive than a single man. The dragons had given humans a wonderful gift with this new power.

  The first blending of magic always impressed him with this tremendous sense of belonging. All his years as a solitary Battlemage hadn’t prepared him for the sensation. Almost better than sex.

  At that moment he sensed Myri’s hand on his physical shoulder. A different kind of touch than Lyman’s, or his own connection to Aadler. His longing to draw her into the wonderful circle of communal magic almost broke his trance and connection to the other magicians.

  The safety of Coronnan depended upon completion of this spell. He needed all his concentration, all his experience, all of his power and more to complete the barricade.

  He breathed deeply. The essence of Tambootie in the air invaded his nostrils, changed, mutated into power. The energy of dragon magic filled every crevice inside his body and his soul.

  (Now.) Now he was ready to create a wall that would protect Coronnan and give the war-ravaged land and people a chance to build a peaceful, cohesive government—as cohesive as the magic that sang through his blood, picking up harmonies from the other men in the circle until they grew into the most beautiful music ever experienced.

  “Where?” He heard and felt his question through every sense—born and acquired—within him.

  (Here.) Myri’s voice whispered across his mind. Myri’s voice and yet different. Multiple Myris. As he was a multiple within the circle of magic.

  His mind opened to a distant vista. He saw the rolling hills that grew ever taller until they became the old mountains that separated Coronnan from SeLenicca. Streams cut ravines through the hills. The ravines became wide passages through the physical barrier. He imagined a wall, twenty feet tall, immeasurably thick and powerful, yet invisible to the casual eye, along the highest ridges.

  (No. Closer. See the armies.)

  Hundreds of men crawled along fifteen of those passages, almost to the end. Almost into Coronnan. If he set the wall along the ridge, the armies would be trapped inside Coronnan, free to raid and pillage at will.

  He shifted his imagery lower, at the eastern end of the mountains, deep into the foothills.

  The men marched closer. Half a mile away.

  (Now. You must drop the wall now.)

  He dropped the wall across the center passage, where the men were closest to their target. A satisfying thunk reverberated through the Kardia, sensed through his whole body. The vibration must have traveled along a ley line to the well beneath his feet.

  From Myri’s aerial view he surveyed
the wall. It looked solid and complete. A deep breath restored his perspective. He began stretching the wall north and south. The magic thinned. The power glowing within the black glass focus dimmed.

  His connection with the Kardia, through Myri, told him the wall shrank to knee-height. The first wave of attackers stumbled, then stepped over the invisible barrier.

  Myri watched the magnificent wall expand lengthwise, pulling substance from itself to follow the full length of the border. In horror, she watched as it shrank in height with every stretch outward. Nimbulan pushed more and more power into the wall. It continued to shrink. He didn’t have enough power at his command to build the new barrier as high and as strong as needed.

  Coronnan would fall to invasion and renewed war. Memories of her brief time in the healer’s tent after a battle churned inside her physical stomach as well as her soaring mind.

  Wounded men had screamed in agony. Their pain became her pain as she tried to heal a few. For every one she helped, three more appeared. There was never an end to the terrible wounds inflicted by other men. The numbers of the dead mounted with each breath.

  So many men cut down in their prime that the villages had no more men to plow and hunt and sire new babies.

  Nimbulan had helped bring peace to Coronnan. The people had not had enough time to recover from three generations of civil war and consider peace a way of life. A few new lives had been conceived to replace the dead. Not enough. Never enough.

  She grieved for the bleak future that stretched thinner than the wall. Tears tracked her physical face as well as her dragon mind. The Kardia trembled beneath her, sobbing for the new assaults on it, rich farmland turned into battlefields, orchards reduced to firewood for massive armies, widows and orphans left to starve. . . .