The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

for understanding and. . . . He didn’t know what the boy wanted from him.
    Jaylor shook his head clear of the need to open his soul to those eyes. Even if this was the kitchen boy, Jaylor had learned too much to entrust his secrets to anyone.
    “No.” Distrust filled him. The boy had arrived too soon, before the fight was truly begun. He couldn’t possibly have run all the way from the castle in the amount of time the inn patrons took to gather and launch their assault.
    The boy had to have stolen the two mounts and headed for the inn about the time Jaylor was throwing his transformation spell onto Darville. Before any of them knew trouble was brewing.
    Instead of speaking further, Jaylor lay Brevelan across the steed’s back. With one hand he steadied her inert body and tangled the other in the coarse mane of the fidgeting beast. He vaulted up. Once settled, he shifted Brevelan to cradle her against his chest.
    “The wolf is not damaged. He can run beside us to the monastery.”
    “My master, Baamin, bade me to watch out for you three. I’ll follow with the wolf.” Grim determination stretched across the boy’s face as well as . . . disappointment?
    Jaylor wasn’t sure what to make of the boy. Better to keep him in sight than risk his spreading mischief elsewhere. They still had a long ride to safety.
    “Very well. Follow as best you can.”
     
    The first of the wounded from the battle of Sambol limped into the capital. Of one mind, they headed for the market square beneath the walls of Palace Reveta Tristile. Shocked and benumbed citizenry followed in their wake.
    As the crowd grew, so did their anger and bewilderment. Lord Krej had promised victory. They had put their trust in the man who promised safety and protection.
    Emotions ran high, surging ahead of the exhausted soldiers to the gates of the palace. Shouts awakened the dozing guards. Pounding fists on the closed gates alarmed the Council.
    Baamin inched his way through the crowd. Everywhere there were cries and wails of anguish as news of death and mayhem followed in the wake of the retreating army.
    Most of the capital citizenry ignored the magician’s progress toward the palace walls. They were too caught up in their own misery to notice anything. The rest of the people were either openly hostile or avoided contact with him with disdain. They recognized his blue robes if not his face.
    Baamin nearly wept at the disrepute fallen on magicians as much as at the anguish of the people around him. There had been a time when he could prowl the market and no one looked twice at his magician’s robes. Magicians were commonplace in the capital. University-trained healers and priests were sought after frequently.
    He forced his way toward a stricken soldier who stood swaying, barely standing with the support of a plain walking staff. A bloody bandage wrapped his head, another barely covered a gaping wound along one arm. Gently Baamin touched the man, lending him strength as he sought a rudimentary healing spell.
    “Get away from him, ye murderin’ sorcerer!” An unkempt woman pushed Baamin away from the man he sought to help.
    “Keep your treacherous ’ands to yerself, sorcerer!” another woman spat at him.
    “We’ll take care of our own. If it weren’t for the pampered magicians, we wouldn’t be in this war. My Johnny wouldn’t be dead!”
    “Kill the magicians and stop the war!”
    Baamin backed away, doing his best to fade into the crowd. Fortunately they were so caught up in the press toward the palace that the malcontents didn’t have time to carry through any threats to his person.
    At a shop entrance he discarded the blue robe, and was clad in only a simple shirt and trews—like everyone else. Only then did he press forward through the crowd.
    He stopped short before a dry fountain. It had been twenty, possibly thirty years since he had wandered through the capital city alone. As soon as he had received his master’s cloak he had been assigned to a court. After ten years he had returned to the University to teach and do research. Most of his time in those days was taken up with his duties. There were servants to run into the market for him, deliver messages, and so forth. Excursions outside the University walls were limited to trips into the countryside with his students.
    And in the last fifteen years, since becoming Senior Magician and adviser to the king, he rarely left the University except to go to court. Those trips were