The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

explosive menace as it rounded the curve of armor and headed straight back toward its sender at double speed and intensity.
    Yaakke recoiled in horror. If the probe pierced his mind, then the hidden magician who had placed the layers of armor on Paetor would know everything about Yaakke, about the Commune’s secrets and the disguises used by the Master Magicians today.
    Yaakke needed his staff to counteract the probe. If he opened his magic senses to keep track of the questing spell, his own power would attract it like a magnet. The staff was inert, unless charged by Yaakke, and could absorb the magic safely. But the staff was hidden, along with his pack, back at the inn. If he’d carried it today, he would have been marked as a magician and hustled off to gaol hours ago.
    On the edge of panic, he ducked the speeding probe and ran, scattering diverting delusions in this wake. The dart of magic swung around to Yaakke’s new direction, seeking the mind that had launched it.
     
    Rejiia de Draconis peered at the coronation spectacle in the Grand Courtyard from behind a magical mask. Resentment of her cousin, the new king, colored her perceptions with black auras. Counting slowly, she controlled her breathing. “I have to see things clearly if I am to succeed,” she whispered to herself.
    Calm spread through her body. Knotted muscles in her back and shoulders relaxed a little.
    The royal steward flung open the massive doors of the King’s Gate, signaling the beginning of the coronation ceremony and a major interruption of Rejiia’s plans to become queen.
    A hush fell over the crowd. Gold- and green-clad musicians sounded the fanfare. Rejiia winced at the harsh sound.
    “Do you think the king will actually show his face?” she whispered into the silence that followed the trumpet blast.
    “Sshh,” a woman held one finger to her pursed lips, signaling silence to her husband.
    Rejiia smiled. The thrown-voice spell worked! “I heard Darville’s face was horribly disfigured in his battle with the magicians,” she commented louder, meaning for all to hear. King Darville’s face hadn’t been touched in the fateful battle with her father and aunt, but his sword arm was badly burned.
    With mischievous glee she fed the mundane superstition against the outlawed magicians of the Commune. Her purposes were served well if the crowd believed all evil sprang from the Commune—especially the coming assassination.
    Acolytes in white, swinging censers of burning incense, began the procession from the palace around the dais in the center of the courtyard. A choir of green-robed sisters of the stars followed next, bearing lighted candles. Their songs invoked blessings from the Stargods in six-part harmony.
    Behind the women marched a bevy of red-robed priests, silently carrying the books of wisdom left by the Stargods. All three groups circled the cloth-of-gold-draped dais.
    The crowd followed the clerics with their eyes. Rejiia was totally forgotten and ignored. Good. She could continue her assignment undisturbed. She faded backward, toward the protection of a guardroom.
    The priests took up positions around the dais. The sisters and the acolytes joined them, alternating silence, song, and incense.
    A ritual the Stargods stole from Simurgh. Rejiia felt the blood drain from her face as she realized the significance of the processional. Nine priests, nine sisters, and nine acolytes marched sun-wise around a place of reverence. Widdershins, you fools! she screamed within her mind ’Tis a ritual designed to raise power and inspire awe. Who knows what demons you will spawn by performing the ritual incorrectly?
    The incense thickened into a purple haze. Too sweet and cloying. Witchbane. Rejiia retreated farther from the dais. She had too much to do today to fall victim to her own plot. If any magicians hid behind delusions in the courtyard, the witchbane would cause their minds to wander aimlessly while their vision bounced and circled. If they tried to use magic to bring their senses back to order and restore their disguises, they would discover all power had deserted them, including their disguises. The mundanes wouldn’t know anything was amiss.
    Lord Andrall, most loyal to the crown of all the Twelve Lords of the Council of Provinces and a royal relative by marriage, emerged from the palace. He carried the Coraurlia, the splendid glass crown shaped into the head of a dragon. The crown that should have come to Rejiia. Costly