The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

new!”
    “They’ve finally done it. They’ve gone over the edge.” Zolltarn joined him beside the hideous sculpture. “Notice the face.”
    Darville looked closer, trying not to retch at the stench coming from the decaying cat body at the base of the sculpture. “It looks like Janataea.”
    “Not quite. Janataea has a straighter nose and higher cheek bones. This is her mother. Krej’s mother, the leader of the coven. I wondered what they did with her body after the rites of passing.”
    “They entombed their mother in a stone sculpture!” Hot, thick bile aimed for his throat. He didn’t want to believe this hideous effigy was the late Countess Janessa, preserved for eternity as an idol for pagan worship.
    “Wait a minute, Krej is the only child Janessa bore. His half siblings were all boys.”
    “Before her marriage to your father’s cousin, the witch Janessa had two illegitimate children. One was Janataea, the other might be the Simeon. He claims descent from Rossemeyer’s exiled queen, Safflon, and her daughter. That has never been proven.”
    “This is getting complicated, Zolltran. How do you know so much?”
    “A very long tale, worthy of a campfire and two jugs of wine. I will enlighten you later. Right now we need to find our companions. If they were going to rematerialize in this room, they’d be here by now.”
    “I’ll go up. You go down. We’ll meet back here.”
    “Stay hidden.”
    “Be wary of magic traps.” Darville checked his stride toward the servants’ stairs. “Zolltarn, is that sacrifice the body of the cat Rosse?”
    “Only our enemies know for sure. Pray that it is not.”
     
    We are discovered. I smell the invasion of many bodies. Curse the transport spell. Jaylor should have given us the secret. He owes Krej, and therefore the coven, the secret for saving his sniveling wife.
    If I had the secret, I would take my princess to Hanassa. We would be safe there.
    In the end, all things come to Hanassa.
    Darville may invade, he may even rescue Rosie. But he will never truly rule until he faces Hanassa.
     
    The shadows in the upstairs corridor were friendly. Darville hugged their shelter as he crept around the perimeter of the massive central keep. Closed and locked doors met him at every turn. Where was everybody?
    On the road between Coronnan City and here. All of Krej’s courtiers and family were elsewhere. The rooms were locked to keep the few remaining servants from disturbing the rooms, or stealing from them. Perhaps the locks were the traps Krej had set for an invasion of magicians.
    He should have encountered someone, though. A servant, or one of the Commune, possibly even Krej himself. No one. He was beginning to think he had landed in the wrong castle.
    An image of a man appeared before him. The beast-headed man of his nightmares. Long shaggy coils of red fur, the same color as Krej’s hair, covered the saber’s face and head. Clad only in a loincloth, the torso and legs rippled with strength. No body hair marred the sleek white skin.
    This was the disguise Krej had worn when he threw Darville’s ensorcelled body over a cliff and left him to die. This was the form the evil magician took when he entered Shayla’s cave and imprisoned the dragon in glass.
    Darville raised his sword, ready to attack.
    “Looking for someone, wolf-man?” Krej’s voice sneered from behind him.
    The beast image hovered and wavered. That’s all it was, an image. Darville’s enemy was behind him. He dropped the sword slightly as he turned to face his cousin wearing another beastly disguise. This time, Krej had chosen the head of a wild tusker, but instead of the dark, lead coloring of a true woods prowler, this image, too, had red fur.
    “I seem to have found him, Krej.” No emotion quavered Darville’s voice. He presented a blank facade to the magician. But the anger and outrage that had been building within him for nearly a year burned white hot and deadly in his gut.
    “Have you really?” Krej’s oily voice emanated from the opposite end of this curving hallway. At the same time, the wavering image of Krej appeared beside the more solid forms of the two beasts. Then they all faded into transparency, and back into their respective images.
    Darville blinked but did not remove his stare from the form he believed to be the source of the kingdom’s troubles.
    “We’ve done this before, Krej. Just you and me. There’s no one else to observe us. No one else to interfere.