The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

sun and moon and stars would become as scarce as true glass if the fanatics rallying around the Council of Provinces destroyed the Commune. The precious instruments could not be replaced. New ones made by the Sisters of the Stars never quite measured up to the originals. Only dragon fire was hot enough to burn the Kardia’s impurities out of sand to make glass clear enough for lenses. Normal furnaces left the glass too muddy and brittle for much of any use. Dragons hadn’t been cooperative or predictable for several generations. There were many reasons Yaakke had been sent to seek them.
    “I stalled Yaakke’s quest as long as I could, hoping he’d exhibit some signs of maturation while he learned something of responsibility.”
    “You did the best you could. He’s a headstrong boy with a mind of his own. Almost as determined and imaginative as you were at that age.” Slipppy chuckled without looking away from his telescope.
    “He’s at least thirteen, maybe as old as fifteen, and shows no sign of puberty. Do you suppose there’s something wrong, that he’ll never mature?” Jaylor asked the older magician.
    “Sometimes that happens. Usually when the boy has been the victim of privation and cruelty as an infant. Or if his mother was the victim of those conditions during pregnancy. Sometimes it just happens.”
    “We’ll never know if that’s the case with Yaakke. He was dropped off at the poor house when quite young. We have no idea how old he was. One year old, based on his size? Or closer to three, based upon his manual dexterity? By the time he was indentured to the University no one thought to test him for intelligence because his language skills were retarded.” More likely, he’d learned to keep his mouth shut in self-defense.
    “I have heard of some distant races where maturity comes late—people who tend to live to very advanced ages,” Slippy mused. “Could the boy hail from across the seas?”
    Jaylor shrugged. Yaakke’s thick dark hair, big lustrous eyes, and olive skin weren’t common features in Coronnan, but they were not unknown.
    “He’ll turn up eventually, Jaylor. Now get back to work. This unexpected meteor shower won’t last much longer. We need to record the data for interpretation later. Perhaps the unusual pattern is an omen of the dragons returning.”
    “Or a sign of disasters yet to come,” Jaylor grumbled as he bent to look through his instrument. “I wonder if I could sniff for his magic in the void?”
    “Don’t even think about it!” Slippy looked up aghast.
    “The last time you ventured into the void the dragons almost kept you.”
    “Yaakke never feared that damned transport spell. Sometimes I wish my apprentice had never discovered it.”
    “Next time you wish that, remember how important the spell is in keeping the Commune and our scientific equipment safe from that new cult, the Gnostic Utilitarians. Whoever heard of preferring to earn something by hard work, study, and sweat rather than requesting it by magic?”
    “Our enemies don’t want knowledge and hard work, they just resent the fact that magicians have secrets and power beyond mundane control. I just hope our spy in the capital manages to stay out of their way.”
     
    Yaakke thrust the shimmering white umbilical away from his heart. As fascinating as the girl seemed to be, he had to find a familiar thread and follow it out of the void—no matter where it led.
    He plucked the nearest coil of colored life away from his face. Cool and gold except for a black spot that looked as if disease burned into the shiny metal. This should be King Darville. A bright iridescent thread entwined with the gold one had to be Rossemikka.
    Slowly Yaakke sorted the cords by the colors of the people who had come close to him. Copper for Brevelan, rusty soil tinged with magician blue must be Jaylor. He deserved the blue now that he was Senior. A silver line dangled from where Yaakke’s belly button should be. An early lesson in magic theory tickled his mind. No one ever saw the true colors of his own aura until tested and found worthy by the dragons.
    Could he follow his own life back out of the void? That might lead him right back where he started—into the suspicion-riddled capital. An abrupt materialization would earn him witchbane and imprisonment at the hands of the Council.
    Then a grayish-green cord wrapped around his waist and squeezed until a sensation akin to belly cramp demanded his attention.