The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

usually in the company of soldiers, servants, courtiers, scribes, and other hangers on.
    Baamin had not truly come in contact with the people of Coronnan since his journeyman days.
    Carefully he watched the people around him. Those who continued to go about their daily business had no use for magic. Those who bewailed the losses in the battle sought their own, unlicensed healers and priests—not those who were University trained and magicians of the Commune first.
    In the last thirty years, magic had been confined to the realm of politics.
    No wonder the people sneered at him, avoided him, made the sign of protection against evil behind his back. Magicians, like politicians, had become dirty and evil in their minds.
    And Krej exploited those fears in his public attempt to discredit and strip the Commune and the University of talent and authority.
    But Krej’s promises had backfired. Distraught women pelted the formal balcony with sewage and rotten vegetables. With new resolve, Baamin faced the protected window where royals were accustomed to appear before their people.
    Krej emerged from behind drawn shutters. The disgusting missiles ceased to reach as far as the balcony. The Lord Regent looked weary, strained. He licked his lips frequently, as if thirsting for something unattainable. Finally, Krej lifted a benevolent hand to silence the jeering crowd.
    Baamin, ever sensitive to the presence of magic, nearly recoiled from the soothing power emanating from that hand. No, not directly from that hand, from someone hidden behind the shutters, or possibly standing at a further distance. Anger boiled up in him. Never in the history of Coronnan had magic been allowed to sway the will of the people—at least not since the Great Wars of Disruption.
    Now Krej was authorizing illegal magic openly, because he thought there was no one to notice or counter the spell. Baamin fought the urge to throw his own spell over the crowd. That action would put him on the same level of deceit as Krej. He couldn’t live with himself if he sank to such a level. And in that moment he had proved to himself that he had not been the prancing rogue who stole the last dragon from the kingdom.
    He raised his own hands. For the first time in his life he was grateful for his short stature. Krej could not see the raised arms above the crowd.
    A tiny silver-blue spiderweb appeared between his fingers. Baamin concentrated all his will into maintaining the filaments of magic light.
    Like any good spiderweb, the magic became sticky, attracting flies. Krej’s spell was the fly lured and trapped into the web.
    The angry noise of the crowd rose to a new crescendo. No longer lulled and persuaded by Krej’s magic, they pelted the Lord Regent anew with filth and rotting garbage.
    Krej raised both hands and the spell increased. Baamin continued to draw power into his hands. His arms ached with the strain of holding them up under the onslaught of new magic. Still he trapped Krej’s power.
    This couldn’t be the Lord Regent! Yaakke was still at Castle Krej reporting on the regent’s activities. Who, then, wore the mask and glamour of the king’s cousin? And who maintained that glamour? Pieces of Jaylor’s puzzle began to fall into place.
    “People of Coronnan!” image-Krej addressed the crowd. His voice boomed over the populace. The people shouted angry curses back. “Listen to me. We have won a great victory.”
    “Lies! All lies. Our wounded say different,” an angry tradesman shouted back.
    “Count the dead. They are more than the living!” cried a woman with a black shawl of mourning over her hair.
    A rotten apple smashed into image-Krej’s chest. It splattered against the plush nap of his overtunic. His outline wavered, revealing a slimmer, shorter man than the Lord Regent. The bloody mess of a spoiled egg followed the apple. It missed the target as magic armor finally surrounded image-Krej. More proof that the man on the balcony had no control over the magic flying into Baamin’s trap.
    Stones appeared among the flying missiles. An overripe pear penetrated image-Krej’s armor, followed by a jagged piece of paving.
    Image-Krej retreated to the safety of the room behind him as guards moved out into the crowd. With cudgels and staffs they pushed the crowd back from the palace courtyard, back from the market square, almost into the surging Coronnan River.
    At last Baamin lowered his trembling arms. His knees sagged. He barely had the strength