The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

still manacled Patchy-beard.
    “He’s a spy for the commandant. We’d better leave him.”
    Both Fraank and Patchy-beard gaped at him.
    “You might as well remove the entire beard, spy. The glue won’t hold it much longer.” Jack continued his trek across the compound to the storehouse.
    “How did you know?” The spy ripped the false beard off in one smooth motion, revealing clean, healthy, skin beneath.
    “You listened too closely and kept trying to touch me in a camp where men avoid physical contact as much as possible in order to maintain some semblance of privacy. As we hauled the lift up the mine shaft, you pulled with too much strength.” Jack selected blankets and new boots, coats, and a tarp for a tent while Fraank stuffed another pack with food.
    “You won’t get far in these mountains without help and a guide. Release my chains, magician, and I’ll take you to safety,” the spy said as he added water carriers to the supplies.
    “What makes you think I’m a magician?” Jack tapped the end of his staff lightly against his thigh. Power shot from the end of the wood down his muscles to his feet. An aftershock tingled against his feet. Moments later the Kardia shook again.
    “The staff.” Patchy-beard clung to the door frame for balance until the tremor eased. “I felt a surge of power the day you found it and came to investigate. Smart move keeping it inside the mine where the commandant couldn’t sniff its power.” The narrow-shouldered man straightened to his true height. With shoulders back and chin lifted, he was suddenly as tall and strong as Jack. And not much older.
    “You are more than a prisoner of war, or a criminal culled from The Simeon’s prisons,” Jack said. He looked behind the man’s left ear, judging the colors of his aura. The colors swirled and changed layers rapidly, defying interpretation. “I suspect you are a military officer on assignment. Perhaps you are one of the sorcerer-king’s converts, seeking sacrifices to Simurgh.”
    Jack looked around for anything more he might need rather than make himself dizzy with the constantly shifting colors of the man’s aura. Nothing important appeared nearby.
    “We have enough. Let’s go, Fraank.”
    “You haven’t released me yet,” the spy reminded him.
    “You don’t deserve release. You and the mine owners and King Simeon should be thrown to the bottom of the mine for what you have done to free men. No one has the right to own slaves and work them to death in that hell-hole!”
    “If you release me and take me with you, I can take you to the coven. They have need of men with your power. They will reward you well.”
    “If you work for the coven, you must be a magician, too. Release yourself.” Anger filled him for his three lost years, for the pain and toil of hundreds of men who had suffered in the mines, anger at himself for becoming a victim of King Simeon. He resisted the urge to plow his fist into the spy’s handsome face.
    “Take me with you. I’m not a magician,” the spy cried. Panic tinged his voice as Jack dove out of the storeroom, Fraank in his wake. “I’m only sensitive to power. And I sense power in these mountains. The Simeon has hidden a dragon in this region. If you are the magician sent by the Commune to find the dragon, I can take you to her!”
     
    Rejiia held her father’s gold-rimmed circle of glass up to a candle flame. Slowly she recited the words of a spell she’d devised herself, pronouncing each word distinctly. The language was modern and didn’t have the power of the ancient tongue of Simurgh, so she reinforced each syllable with magical energy from her mind.
    The babe within her belly quieted his morning ritual of kicking and squirming, as if he knew the importance of magic and didn’t wish to disrupt it.
    Behind the glass, the green flame grew in size, broadened and stilled. The hot core of light surrounding the wick took on new colors. Gold and brown, mixed with ruby, silver, and pearl. Gold by itself. The colors became shapes. Reality faded. She sent her essence into the flame, to become one with the vision she called forth.
    Rossemikka writhing in pain and grief. Darville silently holding her hand. Blood. Death?
    Abruptly the vision ended. The present or the future? No matter. Rejiia had seen enough. She smiled. Something in the bizarre double aura surrounding the queen had caused the latest hemorrhage and kept her from giving Coronnan the long-awaited heir. She