The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

hid behind. . . .
    Jaylor yanked his thoughts back to the star. He needed concentration to gain control of the spell and insure its proper completion. He needed knowledge as well.
    Baamin and Yaakke had been drafted to fill two of the eight points of this ritual. Zolltarn and five of his met completed the pattern. Nine men—eight points and a focus—would bind Jaylor and his magic into a consistent whole.
    The old woman shuffled out of her pattern to the ring of trees. “This is a spell of binding.” Arms outstretched, she encompassed each of the nine men in her intonation. “All beings are one. All magic is one. The warped magic will be drawn out of this man’s body, unraveled, and twisted back right, then the magic will be wrapped around and around his soul, until they are one and the same, complete again, whole again, right again. Only men can touch this magic. Only men will walk the star.” Erda continued. Her eyes glazed over as if she, too, were in a trance.
    “All creation carries magic. The dance is the water, ever moving—ever the same.” The eight men began to weave their pattern around Jaylor.
    “The candles—fire.” Each man carried a candle. As they approached Jaylor within the pattern of the dance, their tapers shot to life; ignited by the magic that permeated the star.
    “Incense symbolizes air.” Erda threw a handful of aromatic herbs into the air. The candles ignited the flakes. Smoke filled the clearing, blurring vision.
    “We ourselves are the kardia, created from dust by the great spirit; bound to the land during our lives, returning to dust at the end of our time.” Erda clapped her hands four times, once for each element, and stepped out of the first circle. “Together, bound into one soul, kardia, air, fire, and water is the Gaia. One life, one soul, one mind, one magic!”
    As the old woman’s words faded into the evening mist, the men increased their tempo from a studied walk to a brisk glide along the lines of colored sand, widdershins along the path of the moon. Jaylor turned so that each of the eight came into his line of vision. He turned on the path of the sun. Turning, turning, faster, ever faster. He matched the pace of his ritual star. The careful steps became a trot, a hop, a dance. Whirling faster, ever faster. The rhythm invaded his being, the steps mimicked the great wheel of stars about the galaxy.
    A strand of red and blue magic reached out to Baamin, another to Yaakke. Their thoughts became his thoughts. Yet another strand touched Zolltarn. The Rover’s convoluted plans became clear.
    In turn, each of the eight men drew a strand of magic out of Jaylor.
    The braids of blue and red power twining out of Jaylor’s soul, were split and warped, just like his staff, exactly like his magic. With each circuit of the star, the strands straightened, unraveled.
    Jaylor watched the threads of his magic as he spun around and around, faster, higher, ever higher. Up and up, always spinning, barely tethered to the ground by the unraveling strands of magic.
    Above the clearing, above the hovering clouds, above it all until . . . until . . .
    He burst free of Coronnan’s gravity and into the void where a nimbus of dragons awaited him.
     
    Jaylor grabbed hold of the wing spine of the big blue-tipped male dragon. Bigger than Shayla by half.
    (I am Seaninn,) the dragon greeted him with proper dragon etiquette.
    (I, Jaylor, greet thee, Seaninn.)
    (I am Gliiam.) A young green-tip darted in front of them to lead the soaring dance. Everywhere Jaylor looked, there were dragons, hundreds of them. All of them had the luminescent pearl-colored fur that defied the eye to linger on it. Pearl with blue, green, red, yellow, and a rare purple running along the wing tips, ridges, and spines.
    They were all males. Shayla, the sole remaining female in the nimbus was all colors/no colors. She had not come to greet him. Nor had she honored him when he had freed her from Krej’s glass prison.
    Some of the joy of his soaring freedom diminished. He had lessons to learn up here in the void. He’d best get to it and return to his body before the dragons tempted him to leave mortality forever.
    A single copper strand of magic reached up through the tangle of blue and red. Even within the order of a ritual, Brevelan would not risk losing him.
    He smiled.
    Brevelan.
    The last time he had soared with dragons, Brevelan’s fragile tendril of magic had held him to reality, brought him home, saved him