The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

shovel inside the mine.
    “Don’t blame you for existing in a fog like that. We were all sent here to die. Not thinking, not remembering the pain we’ve caused others makes it all easier to bear,” the partner said.
    “I don’t think I was sent here for that purpose,” Jack said, more to the jackdaw then to his partner. “If only I could remember!”
    “Don’t force it. Memories are like quicksilver. They look solid until you try to grasp them, then they slip away just out of reach, still looking solid but more than ready to escape again. What are some of the things you do remember? Do you have a name?”
    “Jack.” That didn’t sound exactly right, but it was close enough.
    “I’m Fraank.”
    The jackdaw glided to a fence post on the south side of the yard. It cocked its head and looked at the pair as if listening to their muted conversation. Perhaps the bird had been a familiar. He knew he was a magician, so why not?
    “Corby, Corby, Corby,” the jackdaw called.
    Jack had heard the bird speak in just that way once before. “Corby.” He formed the word soundlessly. “Your name is Corby.” He smiled at the memory of Corby scolding him, listening to him, spotting game for him.
    “What else do you remember?” his partner prodded him.
    “I remember things. I can’t remember me. Look at me, I’m half a head taller than I think I should be, I’m strong instead of skinny, and this beard is full when I’ve never had a beard before.”
    “What things do you remember?”
    “Things, like this is Coronnan and the Stargods outlawed slaves here a thousand years ago. So how can King Simeon of SeLenicca draw slaves from here to fight in his army?”
    “This isn’t Coronnan. We’re in SeLenicca and King Simeon owns this mine.”
    “No.” Jack shook his head. He knew that information was wrong. “None of the guards, nor the commandant, cuts his beard square. The guards speak both languages. Some of the prisoners might be SeLenese, but we aren’t in SeLenicca.”
    “But I was sent here by King Simeon in punishment for my . . . for crimes against him!” Fraank protested.
    “I know that when I fled to this place, it was within the boundaries of Coronnan. I know that in my bones. We are within the borders of the land once reserved for the dragons.”
    “Fled here? You came here by choice?” Fraank’s voice squeaked in apprehension. “Jack, no one comes to this death camp by choice. Not unless you wanted to die or you were running away from something too hideous to remember.”
    Like me .
    A death camp. No one left here alive.
    What had he fled that a hard death in the mines was preferable to?
     
    “Margit, would you summon my cousin the ambassador?” Queen Rossemikka looked up from sealing a long letter. “I wish to place this letter to my brother in the diplomatic pouch.”
    “Yes, Your Grace.” Margit dipped a polite curtsy and fled the queen’s study eagerly. Her lungs grew heavy and clogged every time she was alone with Rossemikka. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear a dozen cats filled the room.
    Margit hated cats. She hated them even when they provided a necessary check to rats and mice in barns. But at least she could breathe in a barn, cats or no cats. Maintaining her pose as a devoted servant to the queen was getting harder all the time.
    Kevin-Rosse, the ambassador from Rossemeyer and Rossemikka’s cousin, lived in a different part of the city from Palace Reveta Tristile. Margit breathed easier knowing she had a legitimate excuse to leave the crowded confines and stale air of the palace.
    If only she were a real apprentice magician. Then she could live in the mountains with Jaylor and Brevelan and the other magicians. She could breathe clean air and sleep out-of-doors if she chose. Eventually she’d be given a quest and allowed to roam Coronnan freely like Marcus and Robb.
    She hurried past the market square between Palace Isle and University Island. Three years ago, she’d sold sausage rolls and other savory pasties here, enjoying the opportunity to escape her mother’s hot and stuffy shop every day. Then Yaakke, the strange magician boy, had sent Jaylor into her life. He’d tapped the power in her brain that she’d kept carefully hidden from the Gnuls and her mother. No one in her family had ever been tainted by magic. At least no one Margit knew about.
    Jaylor had freed her from her mother’s shop and opened many possibilities for the future. A position in the