The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

have been an apprentice magician at the University. If so, he’d know about precious glass and prisms.
    “Prism,” Jaylor explained, “when sunlight hits clear glass at a precise angle the light refracts into a rainbow.” He twisted the crude pottery mug in the firelight. Had these villagers ever seen enough glass, even the muddy colored stuff that was common in the capital, to understand its properties?
    “Glass? Do you suppose a dragon is made of glass?” the barkeep murmured with awe. No one from this village in the back of beyond had probably ever seen true glass.
    But they might have seen a dragon.
    Jaylor wondered what kind of reaction he’d get if he pulled his tiny shard of viewing glass from his pack. They’d probably hang him, or throw him into the deepest part of the Great Bay as fish bait. The glass was barely as large as two of his fingers pressed together. But the mere possession of it identified him as a magician.
    “Glass?” the one-eyed drunk laughed maliciously. “Another privilege for the Twelve and their greedy magicians. Wouldn’t surprise me if dragons and glass come from the same hell. We’re expected to provide food and shelter and cursed Tambootie trees under their orders, for their profit. And what do we get from it? Poorer by the day. I say we kill ’em all, magicians and dragons.”
    The little bit of magic left in Jaylor quivered in reaction to the derelict.
    “I need to find the road into the mountains.” Jaylor started to push back his stool. He’d had enough of the smoke and the steed-piss ale. It was time to move on.
    One-eye stopped Jaylor’s retreat with a look. The undamaged organ gleamed black in the dim light. The smell of Tambootie smoke tickled Jaylor’s nostrils and lifted the top of his head to the cave roof. He silently mumbled an armoring spell before the odor sent him into the void between the planes of existence.
    This old man suddenly reeked of the aromatic smoke. The old books in the library cautioned, repeatedly, to beware the stench of burnt Tambootie wood. A rogue magician intent on evil usually lurked behind it.
    Old One-eye cast off his semblance of inebriation. The stench of Tambootie smoke intensified.
    Jaylor tasted copper on his tongue. Tambootie trees always grew near veins of copper. The smoke must be infiltrating his entire body!
    He pushed away his natural panic while he reached into the well of magic within him. It was dry. He was too tired to think. Instead he blinked his eyes, shifted his feet to a stronger position, and found another source. He strengthened the spell with a silent image, more precise than the formula of words.
    In his mind he clothed each portion of his body in armor. He began with his vulnerable torso, spreading the protection upward and outward. Iron could douse a Tambootie wood fire. Iron would smother the smoke. His head cleared. He felt stronger, more alert now that his protection was complete.
    Not precisely a traditional answer to the problem, but the University needed any magician they could find, even one who used rogue methods to accomplish traditional quests.
    “Someone’s got to find the dragon nest, keep track of it until we see if we need to hunt them out.” Jaylor sought desperately for an explanation for his actions.
    “Can’t find a dragon without the witchwoman. She guards the path into the mountains.”
    Silence greeted that statement. None of the villagers looked too happy, least of all the carpenter.
    “What witchwoman?” Jaylor dismissed the concept of witch. Women just couldn’t gather magic.
    “Our witchwoman, the one who guards the dragons,” One-eye explained.
    “She’ll sell you a potion for the coughing disease or help your woman get with child.” The barkeep was looking into his mug rather than at Jaylor. “All she asks in return is some new thatch or help with the plowing.”
    “Or a piece of your soul.”
    Jaylor had seen plenty of old crones during his wandering, forgotten widows living on the outskirts of villages. Most did midwifery. Some were skilled herbalists. That was the extent of their so-called magic.
    Inside his head he heard cackling laughter. The high-pitched mockery denied his University trained assumptions. Tambootie smoke drifted around him once more. Jaylor’s magic armor shriveled. He slapped a patching spell into his protection. The holes spread, the metal dissolved.
    He shifted his feet once more. Energy and power seeped upward through his body.