The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

Stargods, indeed! We must rely on ingenuity, perseverance, and cunning, not on feeble prayers to nonexistent deliverers. Simurgh helps only those who fight for themselves and for him. If my head didn’t ache so badly, I could convince them with a snap of my fingers.

Chapter 27
     
    B aamin crept softly around the islands of Coronnan City. The cloying mist of midnight saturated and chilled his plain brown cloak. His boots made soft squishing sounds in the mud. Only this late were the streets free of milling crowds, soldiers, and priests. He needed privacy to trace out and memorize each of the elusive silvery-blue lines Boy had brought to his attention.
    His path took him across a series of city bridges east to west, the same direction as the sun.
    The line he was following wavered and fled from beneath his feet. He paused and squinted. It eluded him.
    “Stargods, help me,” he pleaded. This wasn’t the first time he had lost track of the power. His body cried for sleep. The blankness of fatigue covered his mind. And yet the need to know more gnawed at his soul.
    He hadn’t been this tired since his apprentice days, learning to gather magic and throw it back out again. No wonder Jaylor wielded this rogue magic with ease. He was big, with powerful shoulders and a horrendous appetite. He could probably lift a sledge steed without magic.
    Out of long habit, Baamin reached within himself for some magic to guide him and to restore his aching muscles. The well was empty. He hadn’t even tried to gather any magic in several days. Deliberately he stepped back onto the silver-blue line, at least where it had been the last time he could see one. From the depths of Coronnan he pulled some magic into his tired body. He allowed it to feed and restore him, more so than a meal and a nap could.
    Had he done this in his dreams and traveled to the far corners of Coronnan, wreaking havoc? He’d always been taught that the very essence of rogue magic was evil. The idea surfaced that his untapped rogue talent had finally eaten away at his University-trained ethics.
    He tried to banish the idea and failed. If only Lord Krej were not a constant reminder of how the greed for power corrupted.
    Krej had to have lost his magic talents when he left the University fifteen years ago. But his addiction to power could have developed during his magical training. Since assuming the Lordship of Faciar, he must have nurtured the insatiable need to the point of seeking out a rogue to do his dirty work.
    Baamin could never accept Jaylor’s assumption that Krej was the rogue himself. The lord’s presence in the capital while the rogue was operating in the southern mountains was too well documented.
    If Krej were deposed or killed, would the rogue return whence he came and leave Coronnan in peace?
    Sounds from one of the small cottages sent Baamin slinking into the shadows. “ S’murghin’ hound!” A disgruntled voice drifted across this quiet corner of the city. A door opened. Another muffled curse and the thud of a foot catching the cur in the ribs. “Stay out all night. I’ll not disturb my sleep just so’s you can pant after that bitch in heat.” The door slammed.
    The dog wuffled and snorted through his nose. Baamin continued to press his back against a cold stone wall, willing invisibility.
    The dog found him anyway. He sniffed at the magician’s feet and hands, lifted his leg, and sauntered off. Baamin watched him go before slipping out of his hiding place back onto the path of magic he thought he had been following. It was the same route the dog had taken.
    A silver glint off to his left winked at him. He whirled to catch a better glimpse of it. The lovely trail wandered back the way he had come, west to east, the path of the moon.
    He stepped onto the line and squinted his eyes. The old, old planetary magic filled him, climbing through his tingling feet and legs into his hungry belly. It rested there a moment and then climbed higher into his sight.
    Blue, silver, white, palest green, the colors burst through him. An entire web of power lay at his feet. He continued his tracing, following wherever the web led him, along the path of the invisible moon. He no longer needed the cloud-shrouded orb to guide his steps.
    Now that he knew how to look for the web of power, he found the old magic had a luminescence of its own. How had he missed it all these years?
    Because he hadn’t looked. Nimbulan had gone out of his way to eliminate all