The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

from your father-in-law, Lord Krej, and not from the Council as a whole.” Darville pressed on, testing the slighter man’s desire for a fight.
    A look of unease came into Marnak’s eyes. His gaze shifted to the side, to the floor, anywhere but directly at Darville.
    “What’s the matter, Marnak? Afraid to think for yourself?” Darville saw the punch coming and ducked under it. A swift jab with his elbow into Marnak’s kidneys sent the young lord sprawling on the floor. Now Darville could honestly say he’d escaped Council supervision to avoid an attack by a member of that august body.
    The prince launched himself into a sprint for cover. Fred closed and barred the door behind him.
    Darville’s soft, indoor shoes whispered across the stone paving with little traction. Behind him, he heard the heavy footfalls of pursuit. The ogre hadn’t wasted any time. He knew who issued his weekly pay—the Council and not the denuded treasury of the crown.
    Darville dove into an unlit corridor and hugged the shadows. Senses stretched, he paused to catch his breath. Not for the first time he longed for the sharp hearing and keen night vision he bad enjoyed when trapped in a wolf’s body.
    “Nothing down this hallway, Corporal,” Fred spoke with determined authority to the following ogre. “His Grace must have gone down the east corridor.”
    Darville blessed his new friend’s quick thinking. But he couldn’t count on further help. Until the conspiracy to crown the prince grew beyond a few guards loyal to more than their salary and Sir Holmes, he’d have to resort to subterfuge to move about as he needed.
    He eased down the corridor, counting his steps. His legs were longer than they had been the last time he sought the hidden doorway. He adjusted his stride to match the paces of a gangling thirteen-year-old. His fingertips memorized the bumps and crevices of the bare stone wall.
    Forty-seven steps. He caressed an imperfection in the mortar. Under pressure the imperfection grew into a crack just as three men turned into his corridor. More pressure yielded the loud scrape of stone on stone. The crack still wasn’t wide enough to admit his adult body.
    “S’murgh it!” he cursed. With renewed determination he pushed harder on the stone wall. The barrier shifted slightly. Dust and bits of broken stone cascaded onto his head.

Chapter 3
     
    B revelan’s eyes opened within her trance. She searched the confines of her hut, seeking the ripple that had disturbed her concentration. Jaylor lay in exhausted sleep upon their wide cot. Yaakke, Baamin’s apprentice and her link to the University, sat across the open hearth from her, also in trance. All seemed normal, as normal as could be without the presence of Darville and Mica.
    The magic that normally lay hidden deep within her soul rested near the surface of her reality, as Baamin had taught her. In this condition she was ready for the summons that had come through Jaylor’s glass every full moon since last spring.
    Thus attuned, she sensed the harmonic vibrations of all magic within her sphere of power, including Jaylor’s unused staff that was currently barring the door to the hut. Perhaps it was Yaakke’s lack of control over his own trance that had disturbed her.
    In time, with training, she would be able to initiate her own summons, at any phase of the moon. Yaakke could throw the spell sometimes, when he bothered to concentrate and the moon was full to aid him. Jaylor could talk her through the procedure, when he wanted.
    Since his ordeal last spring, when he’d lost his magic and damaged his heart in the process, he avoided all mention of magic. His staff was losing its potency from lack of use. The once twisted and plaited grain of the wood was gradually straightening, except at the two places where Brevelan had spliced the wood, much as she would a broken bone. Those two joins were as strong and twisted as ever.
    Brevelan’s eyes focused and then blurred. Tangible reality faded in and out. One moment she could see the outlines of each familiar person and object clearly. The next those details faded and shimmered with auras.
    Since childhood, she had been reading the colored layers of light surrounding all living things without knowing it. Jaylor’s colors were red and blue, the same signature colors as his magic, radiating out from his reclining body in tight layers. The layers were deeper and the colors truer now than they had been five moons ago. His