The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

penmanship flowed with delicate swirls and loops indicative of a feminine hand. An apprentice of old, recording for her teacher and mentor? Or Myrilandel, the fabled wife of the magician who tamed the dragons and the first known inhabitant of the clearing, perhaps?
    If he could create his own protective boundary elsewhere, perhaps Brevelan would move and he needn’t worry about that damned crack.
    “It’s worth a try.” He ran his finger down a page and stopped on a poem entitled “Invisible Gate.”
    Spirit of air lift me high
With the dragons let me fly.
Protect us with a steady wind
That blows nowhere but here within.
     
     
    Spirit of fire glowing green
Descend from air and wind unseen.
Heat my heart like purest gold
Cast off dross of lies untold.
     
    Spirit of water, blessedly cool
Drop by drop fill this pool
Refresh my mind from life’s pain.
Wash me clean of greed and gain.
     
    Kardia gather with the other three
Root me through a mighty tree.
Anchor me with your knowing love.
Free to choose in the world above.
     
    Altogether, the Gaia you are
bound as one, near and far.
    The poem danced through Jaylor’s mind with a familiar lilt. More a song than a chant. The words were similar to the spells the Rovers had used to bind Jaylor and his fractured magic together long ago, before Darville’s wedding and coronation. Combined with a ritual of candles and dance, the massive spell had drawn magic from the fabric of life rather than simply from the planet below or the dragons above.
    “I’m starting to think in song!” he protested to himself. “Brevelan sings her magic. Krej chanted his spells. There is power in the music, power in the singer.”
    A tune he swore he’d never heard before, yet was hauntingly familiar, trilled through his mind as he repeated the words of the spell. His tongue began to tingle and his feet vibrated in time with the pulsing life of the land beneath his feet. Too soon. The song only bound the singer to the four elements. He needed the spell for the boundary around the clearing before he unleashed that power.
    Carefully he clamped down on his mind and pushed the humming magic back where it came from, but not so far away he couldn’t tap it again.
    He turned the next page of the book and read carefully. “Six eggs gathered this morning. One-and-a-half buckets milked from the goat. Strung a line between the lower limbs of the everblues to hang washing.” Jaylor nearly slammed the book closed. A bloody list of daily chores!
    “One more page.” Then another, and another all the way to the end. More lists. The author of this book was methodical in keeping records. Every person who visited, every cure dispensed, stores of herbs and catalogs of clothing washed and mended.
    Jaylor nearly threw the book down in disgust. “Why do you work so hard at being ignored?” he asked the handwritten pages. “Maybe the spell itself is hiding just like the book. Hiding in an obvious place that I’m sure to overlook.”
    Carefully he pulled some magic into his eyes and lit his senses. Looking obliquely for patterns rather than reading individual words, he thumbed through the book again.
    On the next page, the laundry list dissolved into a similar pattern, revealing words written by magic beneath the mundane chores. The poem leaped out at him.
    Circles within circles.
Elements combined
Protect from eyes
Of the prying kind.
Keep this place safe for me and mine.
The Gaia’s secrets carefully hid
Recited in order from bottom to lid.
     
    Something of the writer’s humor slipped through to Jaylor. With a jaunty air, whistling the tune that bounced from the first poem to his mouth, he returned to the clearing.
    Just before the boundary, where the path’s perceived direction wound around and around the widening crack, he halted and opened the book to the poem. In his joyful baritone he sang the poem backward, one line at a time—from bottom to lid.
    The power of life tingled through his feet to his body core to his limbs and mind, opening every sense and pore to the elements. The boundary appeared before him as a humming wall of swirling metallic colors—copper, silver, gold, lead. In answer to his request, the drifting patterns coalesced and parted into an open gate.
    Jaylor stepped through and sang the spell lid to bottom. The gate dissolved behind him and the colors disappeared. He reached out and touched a solid wall, invisible once again to his eyes and his magic.