The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

twenty-one nights. Then he measured its position between two fixed stars. His eyes blurred and he placed the point of light on the wrong chart, in the wrong position.
    His geometric calculations on the chart tangled.
    One more time. A deep breath for calm. A second deep breath for clear vision. His third deep breath sent him into a light trance. With the aid of his magic, he looked, measured, and calculated once more. The numbers fell into place. The wanderer had definitely shifted its position relative to his location. Precisely what it was supposed to do at this time of year.
    The calculations on the chart, combined with the recent meteor shower, predicted chaos. The same conclusion the other masters had drawn a week ago.
    At last he’d done something correctly. He bent to touch his toes, stretching his back in relief. As he stood again, his shoulder bumped the telescope.
    “Dragon dung. Now it’s out of alignment.” He looked into the lens, still maintaining his extended senses, to see how far off he’d knocked the sights.
    Shimmering pinpoints of light responded to his magic senses. Not starlight. Too green, wrong shapes. He extended his TrueSight and hearing through the telescope into the distance beyond.
    At the extreme limits of his magic, woodsmoke caressed his nose. The sounds of drowsy steeds cropping grass within their picket line tickled his ears. Jaylor drew upon FarSight and the scene jumped as close as the exterior grounds of the monastery. Seventy-five, no, one hundred campfires. One thousand men. Herds of war steeds. He spotted a sentry patrolling a perimeter.
    An army camped out there, half a day’s hard march away.
    Whose army? His spy in the palace had said nothing to him about an army on the move.
    He wished for Yaakke’s listening talent, or for the boy himself. No word from him for nearly two moons now. Curse the boy for his secretive ways and stubborn disregard for others.
    Jaylor sought and found a silvery-blue ley line filled with magic power, running through the foundations of the monastery. Slowly, he urged the magic energy to rise through the walls. The stones caught the power, resonating with their internal music. The magic picked up the natural harmonics and amplified them within the ageless bones of the land. Jaylor listened to the singing of the power. His body vibrated in harmony with it. Only then did he draw upon the power, forcing it upward when it wanted to dart out into the world through his fingers. Up and up into his neck and his mind. The Song of the Kardia grew. He Sang the magic into his eyes and his ears.
    Only then did he look through the telescope again. Bright banners atop gaudy war pavilions came into focus. He identified the flags of Marnak the Elder from Hanic in the southwest and Jonnias from Sauria in the northwest. Neither lord was particularly fond of Jaylor or his magicians, but they had sworn loyalty to Darville.
    A third banner caught Taylor’s attention. Marnak the Younger of Faciar. Through his wife, Rejiia, that sniveling little upstart had claimed Krej’s old province. He, too, had sworn loyalty to Darville, but only after Jaylor had purged the young man of all traces of Krej’s magic manipulation. If Marnak and Rejiia hadn’t been so young and naive about Krej’s corruption, the Council of Provinces would have forced them into exile with Krej’s wife and six younger legitimate daughters. No one bothered counting his bastards.
    Rumor in the capital claimed the tall, determined, and still very young heiress to the province intimidated her shorter husband, and that the marriage had never been consummated.
    Rejiia had tried to renounce her marriage along with her father when the extent of Krej’s evil became obvious. But the Council of Provinces had held the adolescent marriage to be legal and Rejiia’s husband governor of her province.
    The three lords encamped beyond the next line of hills were an odd confederation to lead an army. None of them had ever shown interest in the arts of war before.
    Jaylor puzzled over the implications, listening to the small sounds of night life in a military camp. He swung his vision around the perimeter of pickets and steed lines, tents, and provision sledges. One more large pavilion stood off to the side, but still within the perimeter of the camp, as if seeking privacy and protection at the same time. The royal banner of a dragon outlined in gold against a midnight blue field surrounded by silver stars flew