The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

offered to buy the shawl several times. Proud Tattia had refused to let it go. Now she had gone out in the predawn freeze wearing nothing but her nightrail and the silken lace.
    Katrina ran back to the kitchen. Her father gently laid Hilza’s slack body on the straw mattress. Tears streamed down his careworn cheeks.
    “P’pa?” Katrina choked on the fears that swamped her.
    “There is nothing more we can do, Katey. Our baby is gone. We must be grateful that she is no longer in pain, no longer struggling for every breath.” He stood over the body of his youngest daughter, shoulders slumped.
    “P’pa, I’m frightened. I think M’ma ran away. She didn’t wear her cloak or her shoes.”
    Fraanken looked up from his contemplation of death. His chin trembled with the effort to control himself. “Stay with your sister. One of us must watch over her until her spirit is prepared for passing.” There was no one else. He didn’t need to remind Katrina that Maaben no longer considered herself part of the family. “I will search for your mother. Perhaps she finally agreed to sell the shawl. She would have to go in secret because of King Simeon’s ban on her work.”
    “M’ma would not have left the house at midnight without her gown, or shoes, or cloak if she merely wanted to sell the shawl.”
    A fierce pounding on the kitchen door roused them both. Katrina’s eyes widened in greater turmoil. Stargods! What other disaster could plague them? For only the direst emergency would bring unannounced visitors to the basement door in the dead of night.
    Fraanken yanked open the inner door and unlatched the outer with fumbling haste. A dour-faced man in the black uniform of the city guard glared at them. “Do you recognize this?” He held up a sodden and filthy length of lacy silk.
    “M’ma!” Katrina gasped.
    P’pa held the shawl as if it were a great treasure. He suddenly appeared old, shrunken, feeble.
    “We found that floating in the river right after a passing member of the palace guard reported seeing a woman jump from the bridge.”

Chapter 11
     
    Y aakke concentrated on the clouds. He forced a clump of moisture to gather above the ruined monastery.
    “You can’t save them.” A feminine voice interrupted his spell.
    He whirled on top of his rock, almost losing his balance. A black-haired young woman, with incredibly beautiful white skin, stood at the base of the boulders, hands on hips, huge blue eyes angry and accusing. The skirts of her black traveling gown and the length of her unbound hair billowed out behind her in the rising wind.
    Vaguely he realized his manipulations of the clouds and temperature had created the wind.
    “I’ve got to try!” Yaakke returned to his task. The clouds above the ruins sagged, heavy with water. A little shift of the temperature beneath them and they dumped their load of thunder and lightning, but no rain.
    Yaakke tried again, lowering the clouds into the ruins of the monastery. Still no rain, only a dense oily fog rolling through the crumbling masonry.
    None of the soldiers noticed the strange weather. They were too busy mauling tapestries depicting the descent of the Stargods. Crude ale splashed from golden winecups. But no one burned a book or smashed delicate glass and brass instruments.
    “Trying to smother the enemy with a mist?” The girl laughed, rich tones sliding up her white throat. “Like as not you’d have more success putting out the fire if you spat on it.”
    Yaakke blushed from his ears to his toes. “You destroyed my concentration.” His voice cracked into an embarrassing squeak.
    “You still can’t save them. You’re too late,” she stated. “But you can exact vengeance from the lords who sent the army to destroy your precious Commune.”
    The clouds above the monastery thinned and drifted back to a more natural pattern. The wind faded with them. Once more Yaakke sought Jaylor’s spirit within the ruins.
    Nothing.
    With mounting anxiety he probed for any member of the Commune: prickly old Lyman, wily Fraandalor, gentle Brevelan, or even her baby, Glendon.
    No response.
    “I told you, you’re too late. But I will reward you mightily if you blast Lord Jonnias and the Marnaks—Elder and Younger—to hell and back again.” Her eyes smoldered with fanatical hate.
    “Who are you?” Yaakke twisted into a sitting position on top of the boulder. He rested his head in his hands, massaging his temples. Where were Jaylor and the others?