The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

Krej was proving to be a sound strategist. Darville would just have to be smarter.
     
    “Master?” Boy poked his head into Baamin’s study as dawn crept across his windowsill.
    “Yes, Boy?” He propped one eye open from his brief doze at his desk. He had spent another long night tracing lines of magic power. The hours of extremely hard work were taking their toll on his aging body. He’d had to have several robes altered to fit his decreasing girth.
    But when he finally slept, he slept soundly and dreamlessly.
    “I heard somethin’ in the palace last night.”
    Baamin sat up straighter. If the boy risked coming to his study, even at this very early hour, the news must have import.
    “Lord Krej, he’s expecting some ’bassadors.”
    “Ambassadors,” Baamin automatically corrected the boy. “Speak properly, Boy.” He spoke more curtly than he’d intended. With a great show, he unscrewed the cap from his flask and took a swig. Would Boy read his thoughts again and know the restorative in the metal bottle was only sugar water?
    “Ambassadors, sir. From Rosie Mire. Something about an alliance.”
    “Rossemeyer?” Rossemeyer, a poor desert kingdom with an abundance of nomadic mercenaries, the treacle beta, and not much else. The warriors they bred preferred real wars instead of training exercises to keep up their legendary strength. They were coming to enforce their ultimatum. Darville as bridegroom to their beloved princess, or war.
    Which natural resource did Rossemeyer covet—black fire rock, gemstones, the lush flood plains of Coronnan River? Perhaps they knew Prince Darville was missing and the entire charade of alliance was an excuse for invasion.
    Then again, Rossemeyer could be searching for an abundant supply of the Tambootie.
    Baamin didn’t know why he thought of the aromatic wood as a natural resource. Once the idea took root, he began to see it as the answer to many questions.

Chapter 28
     
    J aylor sighted along his staff. He pointed it straight down the main north-south road. Or rather, he pointed it where the road should be. Due north. But the road appeared to be coming from the northeast. The edges of the road wavered with more than just the distortion of rain on mud.
    He changed position, aiming the staff and his concentration along the new sighting. Stargods! The road shifted, too. Now it appeared to be more to the northwest.
    “Where is the road now?” he asked of Brevelan and Darville who stood directly behind him, far enough away not to interfere with his concentration.
    “Looks like it runs due west, straight into the Bay,” Darville replied. “But it shouldn’t.”
    “No, it shouldn’t. Which means we are fighting a delusion. A very strong delusion.” Frustration gnawed at Jaylor’s concentration. With all this strange magic bouncing around him, he couldn’t think or see straight.
    “If we followed the sun, rather than the road?” Brevelan’s voice was tentative.
    He gathered her hand into his own to reassure her, and himself. “The time has come to start breaking down some of Krej’s spells. By the time we reach his castle, I want his magic in tatters. The more energy he spends repairing what I have torn apart, the less he’ll have to throw at us.”
    She gulped and nodded. He did the same and knew that Darville mimicked their actions.
    “What about those blue lines of power you described?” Darville asked. He, too, was squinting, trying to see where they should be going. “Can you tap into them, or use them as a guide?”
    “Lines of power,” Jaylor mused. “The dragons showed me lines of power, running through Coronnan, like so many irrigation ditches, emanating from the very depths of this world.” His vision focused backward to his flight with the dragons.
    Blue-silver webs encasing the world far below him. Tambootie trees seeking them out. Veins of copper ore filling the hollow paths of burned out power.
    When he’d come out of the Tambootie-induced vision of dragons, he hadn’t been able to focus his eyes if he looked at something head on. Only when he inspected individual items from the side could he maintain a clear view.
    The trap in Darville’s transformation spell had been laid for a direct attack. Breaking the spell had required a roundabout route. Jaylor turned his body due west. He looked sideways at the road running north, moving only his eyes.
    There! The thoroughfare ran true to form with no evidence of magic glamour distorting the