The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

road should be, while his body looked toward the Great Bay.
    Blue. Silver. Green. Red. Purple. Copper. More blue. The colors of Coronnan braided themselves along the staff and shot forth in a line, straight and true.
    The road found its direction, wavered and shimmered, then settled along its original route.
    “I believe we have a journey to make, my friends.” Jaylor smiled as he lowered the staff and took his first step on the road to Castle Krej. He kept Brevelan’s hand tucked into the crook of his elbow. Darville’s hand rested on his shoulder. None of them was willing to break the unity they had found while flying with the dragons.
    Mica purred. The soaking rain gave way to broken shafts of sunlight.
     
    They are coming closer. I can feel their presence. The journeyman is more clever than I thought. He has broken one spell. There are many more traps along the way. I shall twist and twist again the magic that will delay him. He’ll never break through my defenses. No man can defeat me. I have accomplished too much.
    If only this headache would go away. The pain throbs constantly, demands my attention when I need all my concentration to maintain my spells and save the bumbling army from their own mistakes. I can’t allow the minor inconvenience of a lost battle to destroy my schedule of conquest.
    A little more Tambootie. I must have a little more to ease the pain, increase my concentration, strengthen my spells.
     
    Baamin stood outside the door to the king’s study, uneasy, undecided. Only it wasn’t the king’s anymore. Krej’s ambition had gone too far. The Lord Regent’s inflated conceit needed to be curtailed before he managed to destroy Coronnan and the Commune with it. But was Baamin, Senior Magician, the man to stop the king’s cousin?
    He couldn’t delay any longer. Someone had to take action and he seemed to be the only one capable of seeing what needed to be done.
    With a flourish of his staff and a flash of harmless blue powder, he stepped through the doorway, into the king’s study.
    “The border city of Sambol has fallen,” Baamin announced.
    “What!” Krej shouted, half rising from the thronelike chair behind the desk.
    “The border city of Sambol fell to a series of attacks by a well-organized army, disguised as raiders,” he repeated. “Raiders who carried purses of gold drageens from the mint in your province of Faciar.” The news wasn’t pleasant. Krej’s surprise at the news was. “How did they obtain un-circulated coins that only you could have provided, Lord Regent?”
    “Sambol can’t have fallen. I had messages from Lord Wendray last night. He assured me that his troops had beaten back the men who breached his walls.” Krej waved his hand in dismissal, totally ignoring the implied accusation that he had paid the raiders to attack Sambol. “How did you get in here, old man? I gave orders banning you from my presence.”
    “I’m a magician. I have my ways.” Baamin shrugged. He was enjoying Krej’s discomfort. Krej had spent his boyhood either in his mother’s isolated care or in the University. So he’d never learned about the existence of the myriad secret tunnels that ran through and beneath Palace Reveta Tristile. But Baamin knew them and could enter nearly any room in the palace. He’d explored them numerous times when he and Darcine were young.
    “The dragons have deserted the kingdom. There is no more magic to make you a magician,” Krej asserted. The Lord Regent settled back into his chair but continued staring at Baamin as if he were vermin.
    “Are you sure about that?” Baamin refused to move from his place just inside the door. He allowed his eyes to squint just a little. There was the faintest trace of a silver-blue web at his feet. It faded into nothing where Krej sat.
    Either Krej couldn’t find the lines, didn’t know they were a power source, or he’d been unable to move the desk and chair to a stronger location.
    “I’m very sure, Baamin.” Krej, too, was squinting now. What did he see—the lines or Baamin’s aura? Swiftly, Baamin drew in his thoughts and energies. His mission would be for naught if Krej saw either the vial of deadly powder in Baamin’s pocket or his intent to use it. If Baamin found the courage to kill Krej tonight, problems would surely follow. If he allowed Krej to live, the red-haired lord would continue to wreak havoc on them all.
    A knock on the door behind him did not disrupt the locked gazes of the