The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

breasts escaped the confines Of her gown entirely, bouncing with the rhythm of her laughter. The riotous sound of her laughter rose to the peaks of the mountains on their left. It swelled and spilled across the waves to the distant blur of land on the right. It filled Rosie’s head with growing unease.
     
    One for the table. Six for the root cellar. Jaylor drove his shovel deep into the ground, seeking yet another yampion plant. The blade bit into the dirt and held.
    Sweat ran in rivulets from his back and brow. The sun was hot for this late in the year. Perhaps the good weather would hold until all of Coronnan’s harvest was in.
    Stargods, but they needed a good harvest after a winter of unrelenting rain that rotted stored foods and bred new diseases, followed by the incredibly cold spring and wet summer. Many villages would barely have enough food to last through the coming winter as it was.
    He drove the shovel deeper. A shiver of something . . . something powerful and special rippled up the handle of the shovel. Jaylor stopped his toil and waited for his heart to miss a beat. His pulse skittered in recognition of the rippling energy. He had hit a line of magic power, a ley line according to an ancient tome he’d read last spring. If his magic was gone, he shouldn’t feel the tingle all the way to his hair.
    On the distant wind, a peal of laughter echoed around the mountains. Jaylor raised his head to listen. It was a sound that didn’t belong there. Out of long habit he squinted his eyes to focus on the silvery-blue line of power gripping his shovel. He shifted his body until he was comfortable drawing the magic into himself through the twisted wooden handle of the shovel. A thought and a word channeled the magic to ears and eyes.
    Aided by magic, his FarSight extended through the forest, over the hills and beyond the horizon. An easy spell that cost only concentration and maybe a headache and temporarily blurred vision afterward.
    A ship was sailing through the Great Bay below him. A foreign ship. Two women perched on a spar. One of them was laughing uncontrollably.
    Then Jaylor remembered that he no longer had any magic, nor would his heart support the massive power surges through his body. He had used up a lifetime of magic, and then some, in his massive spell to break Shayla free from Krej’s prison of glass. His awareness of the ship and the laughter vanished.
    But he had just worked an elemental spell. His body tingled with excitement and a niggle of power. His heart continued to beat strong and steady.
    His magic was returning!
    Carefully, oh so carefully, he visualized the silvery-blue ley line again. Nothing.
    He shifted his body and squinted the way he had learned to find magic.
    Nothing.
    Disappointment flooded through him. Just like his apprentice days when he had been the last to learn the techniques of gathering magic.
    But this wasn’t dragon magic, and he wasn’t gathering it. He was drawing on primary powers comprised of the four elements—kardia, air, fire, and water.
    The line had been directly beneath his feet a moment ago. It should still be there. Power didn’t move, only man’s perception of it shifted.
    He tried again. Slowly, carefully he gripped the shovel as he would his staff.
    A glimmer of power tingled in his feet, rose to his knees, hovered there. He routed the energy upward, avoiding his vulnerable heart.
    Brevelan’s voice raised in song across the clearing. The power rose in his body as her voice ascended in pitch.
    S’murgh it! The magic responded to his wife’s song but not to his talent. Jaylor damped his attempt to find the magic. He didn’t want to do it if he had to be helped.
    Then he looked at the shovel again. Really looked at it. The familiar handle had been replaced with his cast-off staff. He examined the spiral grain. It was straighter now than last time he’d looked at it.
    He recreated in his mind the day, not yet a year gone by, when he had cut this staff from an oak tree where mistletoe grew thick. . . .
    He ran his hands along the straight limb he trimmed from the tallest oak tree on Sacred Isle. Its rough bark fell away from his knife. The tip of the branch broke off precisely where he wanted. When he handled this primary tool of a magician he felt taller, more competent.
    Until he returned to the student wing of the University.
    The other journeymen, all younger than Jaylor and possessed of their staves for many moons, taunted him with his