The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

More cautiously than before, Yaakke plucked at it. The keeper of the Bay Hag Inn appeared before him, thrashing around his filthy kitchen and pantry. He screamed and searched the cupboards. Though Yaakke couldn’t hear his words, he knew the man needed bread and cheese and dried meat to supply the last group of travelers. Every cabinet, basket, and shelf was as empty as his cash box. Illusory coins passed and exchanged by Yaakke during the coronation festival had vanished. Behind the innkeeper stood a tax collector. Without the journey rations to sell to the travelers, the innkeeper didn’t have enough cash left to pay his due. Yaakke had stolen a large portion of those rations for his fast trip away from the capital.
    An unpleasant taste penetrated Yaakke’s overloaded senses. He couldn’t remember why he’d had to steal or where he was going. He thrust aside the innkeeper. The man was a cheat and overcharged for everything from his rooms to a single mug of ale. He deserved a hefty fine for overdue taxes.
    Maybe Yaakke should search out the single crystal umbilical that was Shayla. Certainly the dragon would be willing to help him.
    Help him do what?
    He thrust his shadowy hand past another bluish cord. A vision of Nimbulan, the greatest magician in Coronnan’s history, shimmered before him. The exhausted founder of the Commune said a sad farewell to his beloved wife as she left Coronnan for a lonely exile. All magicians who couldn’t gather dragon magic were banished from Coronnan at the end of the great War of Disruption. All women of magic, led by Nimbulan’s wife, Myrilandel, were included in that ban.
    Yaakke knew what it was like to be alone.
    Other scenes from Coronnan’s past fled by him. He watched, fascinated, as lives wove themselves into the web that trapped Yaakke. Curiosity propelled him forward and back through time. He caressed the umbilicals, searching for . . . searching for . . .
    He couldn’t remember. Somewhere in the compelling interplay of life, he lost track of himself. Yet something told him he couldn’t waste any more time here. He had to go. But where? What was time?
    The copper umbilical glided beside him. Copper. That was important. Copper, a planetary element, anchored to the core of Kardia Hodos. Copper for Brevelan and her unique nurturing magic.
    Partial memory lightened fading corners of his mind. Brevelan, the first woman to care enough about him to teach him manners and give him hugs without attempting to pick his pockets. He had to find her clearing deep in the southern mountains. From there he needed to make his way to Shayla’s old lair higher yet in those mountains.
    He picked up the copper cord, seeking an image to guide him back out of the void.
    Instead of the clearing, he saw a cave. Jaylor and Brevelan. The two were frozen in time, reaching out in protest, Reaching out to Shayla. Yaakke watched, horrified, as a dancing Krej used his magic to transform Shayla into a glass sculpture. Every transparent hair that cloaked the dragon’s gravid body changed into a real crystal. The elegant all color/no color wing veins and spines dulled from natural iridescence to clear glass. The life within her and the lives of the twelve babies she carried stilled, stumbled, glimmered, just barely aware. Yaakke nearly dropped the copper thread of life in despair.
    The images faded and something alive and wonderful died within Yaakke. One of Shayla’s babies hadn’t survived that spell. When freed of the magic prison, the dragon’s anger over Krej’s betrayal of the pact between Coronnan and the dragon nimbus caused her to fly away, leaving magic chaos in her wake.
    Now it was up to Yaakke to find her again and restore the controls that existed only in dragon magic. Those controls would also end his own magic career. Because he couldn’t gather dragon magic, the Commune would exile him or dose him with witchbane.
    The blue-tipped male dragon had asked for a meeting in the very cave where Krej had worked his evil. Could he provide clues to Shayla’s location?
    Solid ground rocked Yaakke’s body and jarred his teeth. Slowly he opened one eye. Did he have an eye to open, or was that an illusion of the void?
    Morning light, slanting through the thick forest pierced his vision. By contrast to the emptiness of the void, the watery sun trying to break through the clouds and fog seemed blindingly bright. Cautiously, he checked around him.
    The clearing! Familiar, homey, isolated.