The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

desperate war.
    A war guided by the man who sat his war steed at a distance and watched. A man who licked his lips in eager anticipation of more and more bloodshed.
    The dragons and their vision zoomed in on the magnificent figure on the hill. Long, straight nose, high cheek bones, florid complexion beneath bright red hair. Krej’s face stared back at them. Krej’s face, with a square-cut beard in the fashion of SeLenicca. Instantly, Jaylor knew the man to be the infamous King Simeon, and Krej’s half brother. A sorcerer in a land that had no magic to feed his natural talents.
    Dragon wisdom fed him the complex family tree that branched into every royal family on the planet. Patterns formed in the matings. Every birth was part of a huge plan to control every known government—not just the three kingdoms on this continent.
    Beside King Simeon sat his queen, Miranda, a petite teenager with trusting eyes and a quiet nature. She wasn’t watching the battle. She saw only her consort.
    “She’s bewitched,” Jaylor spoke to his escort. “No wonder she granted him ruling powers and the title of king over the objections of her advisers and guardians. I can break the enchantment, make her see what this war is doing to innocent people.”
    (She will not believe you. She wants only to be in love with a strong and handsome man.)
    Gliiam turned in a wing-length and flew east again to Coronnan City. The wide and muddy river absorbed the gray of the skies, the fading brown of autumnal fields, and the life blood of the people who lived on its swollen banks. The first of the fall rains fell on brick-dry ground and ran into the river without nourishing the land. Huge chunks of cultivated fields succumbed to the river’s relentless force. Villages in its path were swept away. Harvests were ruined. More lives were lost.
    Jaylor swallowed grief. “Many will go hungry this winter. For the second winter in a row.”
    In the city, the lords gathered in the Council Chamber and argued without resolution.
    (Look at the Council. Do you truly wish to spend the remainder of your days battling their endless arguments? They will never agree with you, or with each other.)
    The temptation to exile himself from the capital was strong. “Coronnan is my home, the land of my nurturing, my family, and generations of ancestors. For those I love, past, present, and future, for the good of the kingdom, I must pierce their self-centered power games.”
    Across a narrow footbridge, in the University, an old man surrendered to pain and died. The exotic poisons, given him by the coven and by the enemies of Coronnan, faded with his aura so that no one might know their origin.
    Brevelan and Yaakke cried. Jaylor closed his eyes in sorrow.
    “For all of our arguments, I loved Old Baamin. He trusted me when no one else did. I owe him much and grieve his passing.”
    The dragons, one and all, dipped their heads in salute to Baamin.
    (He will be one of us shortly. His life has been honorable and his destiny not yet finished. His life spirit, his intelligence and his wisdom have been rescued from his poisoned body. A new form has been granted him so that he may finish his work. We grant him the right to wear blue on his wing tips, in memory of his previous life as a blue-robed magician.)
    “I’m certain he will be honored.”
    Jaylor watched as Brevelan began preparing Baamin’s body for the funeral rites. Yaakke was too grief-stricken to be of much help. Gently, she urged him through the final task, forcing him to accept a death.
    Beside them, Glendon slept in his cradle. Jaylor saw the golden edge to the infant’s aura. Evidence of Darville’s blood, or of his own distinctive personality and magic?
    (Do you still wish to return to Coronnan, to a life of fruitless striving against single-minded humans? You can be free of mortal concerns. Fly with us on the wind, live from moment to moment, with no responsibilities.)
    He was tempted by the life of peace in the clearing with Brevelan, not by the offer of near-immortality with the dragons. Jaylor wanted to grow old with Brevelan at his side. He wanted to share her dragon-dream of a large loving family who passed honorable magic down through generation after generation.
    “Shayla promised Brevelan a passel of red-haired children. Only her firstborn is to be blond. By right of Shayla’s dragon-dream, I demand that you return me to my own plane of existence. I must finish the work that I have begun. With