The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

bird.”
    “Corby. Corby. Corby,” the bird repeated as it flapped its wide wings and launched itself into the sky.
    Yaakke dismissed the bird with a shake of his head.
    Jaylor needed to know about the smuggler and the foreign magician running free in the capital, not about weird birds. Right away. Yaakke sent another message to Jaylor. Still no answer.
    At the entrance to the Grand Court, Yaakke dropped to his hands and knees in the middle of the crush of people. He found paths between legs. He avoided trouncing feet with the skills he’d learned as a child while avoiding bullies and thieves. He dared not throw a spell of invisibility to let him pass through the tight crowd. One jostling elbow would rip right through the spell and get him into more trouble.
    Already today he’d passed magic coins at the tavern, revealed his magic to an alien magician, and lost all trace of the smuggler. He really needed to avoid any other problems.
    No one noticed his natural thin and ragged urchin body as he crawled between the legs of a cloth merchant and under the crossed pikes of the guards. All attention seemed directed toward the center of the courtyard where King Darville and Queen Rossemikka moved in stately procession toward the dais.
    “But I provided the queen’s gown. I have a right to view the coronation,” the cloth merchant above Yaakke argued with the guard.
    “You’ll have to wait for the procession across the city bridges, sir,” the guard repeated the same phrase he’d probably been saying all morning. “One more person in there and the whole court will sink back into the river.”
    Breathless and sweating, despite the autumn nip in the air, Yaakke crawled through the crowd to the wall of the court where it hung out over the River Coronnan. He tried to stand up, but couldn’t force himself through the mass of legs and brocade robes, velvet slippers and leather boots.
    “May you all wallow in dragon dung,” he grunted as he pushed his back against the wall and inched upward. Stone and mortar scraped his skin through his simple homespun shirt. He ignored the burning scratches until he was fully upright, staring straight into the bay-blue eyes of a tall, black-haired girl with beautifully clear, pale skin. His heart almost stopped beating as he gasped at her beauty. Long black lashes framed her big eyes. She lifted a hand to sweep a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. Graceful. Elegant. She was taller than he by half a head or more and seemed to be about his own age. But those eyes spoke of knowledge and pain, and were old beyond her years.
    Something about the set of her jaw and the penetrating look she gave him was familiar. Brevelan’s eyes. Another of Lord Krej’s get. The deposed regent had scattered his seed as indiscriminately as his magic. Which of his many daughters was she? Before he could remember, she turned and dissolved into the crowd. None of her thoughts were open to his telepathy. She didn’t seem to be armored, just elusive. He watched the spot where she had disappeared into the crowd, hoping to catch another glimpse of her.
    “I don’t have time for this,” he muttered.
    Yaakke searched the crowd for Jaylor and Brevelan. All he saw was satin and brocade and jewels, fortunes in jewels. Wealth and prestige were the only things that counted in the Grand Court today. His everyday country trews and tunic, as well as his youthful face and small stature would mark him as an outsider and unworthy to attend the coronation. He draped a little delusion about himself, making sure that each citizen saw his tunic and trews as equal in cost and grandeur to their own.
    And he’d better avoid the numerous guards scattered throughout the crowd. Palace guards were notoriously strong witch-sniffers. One whiff of his magic and he’d end up in the same dungeon cell as the hideous statue that Krej had become with a heavy dose of witchbane to keep him there.
    “I don’t mind King Darville wanting more money for the army,” a lavishly garbed town dweller complained. “We’ve got to protect our borders since the magicians deserted us and took their protective barriers with them. But Darville thinks we should feed the poor, too. I say let the wretches find honest work or join the army. I have trouble enough keeping the wife in SeLenese lace.” He and his equally elegant companion strained anxiously to see the king he discredited.
    SeLenese lace? All imports and exports from SeLenicca were