The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

of the booming cascades.
    Fraank didn’t look up from his concentrated trudging. Nor did he respond. All of his energy went into placing one foot in front of the other.
    “Come, Fraank, you can’t let King Simeon win. You’ve got to fight to get well.”
    Fever and lung-rotting mine dust dulled Fraank’s upturned eyes. Sadly he shook his head and plodded forward, each step an effort.
    Jack stretched his senses forward and back; a difficult task now that they were deep into SeLenicca and the pockets of rejuvenated magic were scarcer than the widespread villages. He sensed three large life-forms behind him, at least two days away. He couldn’t tell if they were men, steeds, or deer. He didn’t have enough magic to hone in on details and find out if Lanciar had summoned reinforcements.
    Up ahead a different sensation sent his body tingling and humming with joy. LIFE! Vibrant, buoyant, joyful life. Dozens of lives, dominated by one, much larger than the rest. The primary mind picked up his probe and sent it back to him with greeting.
    (Welcome, Magician. I have waited long for you. Come, eat, rest. There is much work to be done.)
    Jack reared, propelled backward by the strength and clarity of the mental command.
    “Shayla?” Jack asked the air around him. Who but a dragon could penetrate his armored mind?
    (Who else would live behind a waterfall and play with a dozen silver dragonets?) The dragon chuckled. Her voice filled him with rich images of immature dragons frolicking in the rippling pool beneath the waterfall.
    Feeling fresher and stronger than he had in weeks, Jack supported Fraank around the waist and marched the older man deeper into the rift between enclosing hills.
    A path cleared by clawed dragon feet opened before them. Not a single pebble marred the surface of the packed dirt to trip them or lead them astray. Boulders had been pushed aside to allow passage of wide dragon bodies with delicate wing membranes. Above them, the mountain walls rose steep and sheer. What need had dragons of climbing upward when they could fly?
    “Just a few more steps, Fraank. A few more steps and you can sleep,” Jack urged his friend.
    Half a mile farther, Fraank was drooping visibly, as if the end of the quest marked the end of his life. Stubbornly, Jack shouldered the older man’s nearly empty pack, along with his own and continued to hold him up, almost carrying him as they penetrated the mist.
    The valley corridor widened into a deep bowl ringed with cascades in many sizes. Sunlight struck water and sent rainbows arcing in all directions. Directly ahead, a huge waterfall thundered. The outline of a crystal dragon head pushed through the curtain of the falls. Sunlight struck water and dragon together, granting a wild array of colors to the mist.
    Jack blinked. More of the dragon appeared outlined by the water. Rainbows danced around the crystal horns marching from forehead to tail. Then Shayla broke free of the main cascade of water. Droplets shone on her crystal-fur. Each tiny hair reflected the bright sunlight back to Jack’s eyes, defying him to look directly at her.
    And yet Shayla was so incredibly beautiful with her all-color /no-color fur, he couldn’t look anywhere else but directly at her.
    The male dragon who had shown young Yaakke a dragon-dream of this valley had been touched by blue along his wing veins and tips. Jack suspected the unnamed dragon’s fur had held just a hint of color on the end of each hair too. But not Shayla. Every color visible to the human eye bounced off her body giving her the luster of pure, rare glass, a substance that could only be forged by dragon fire.
    Gracefully, Shayla waded from her concealment behind the curtain of falling water through the pool to where Jack and Fraank stood. Jack watched her progress as the water lapped halfway up her side, splashing occasionally onto her wings and neck.
    The pool was immense. And deep. At the shoulder, the dragon was twice as tall as Jack, and equally as wide. The pool was at least six dragon-lengths across. Shayla didn’t seem to be swimming. Jack wasn’t certain dragons could swim. So the water was at least as deep as he was tall, maybe more.
    (We swim when the water is deep enough.) The dragon answered him before he could ask the question. (We swam in the Great Bay often when we flew the skies above Coronnan.)
    Embarrassment tinged Jack’s cheeks and the tips of his ears. He looked into Shayla’s half-closed jewel of an