The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

people. A wide circle formed around the crumpled body. Blood stained the fire-green robe and black tunic an ugly and lethal red.
    Jack skidded to a halt beside the groaning figure. Cautiously he extended his hand to the carved bone of the knife hilt. The outline of a winged god glared at him, defying him to remove the knife from the wound.
    He’d seen that outline before. Lord Krej had created a huge stained glass window of Simurgh in the great hall of his castle. Not true glass, but a magical simulation formed of blood and the volcanic sands of Hanassa.
    Jack’s hand shook as it hovered above the instrument of death. A ritual knife. Wielded by the coven.
    Frantically, Jack sought a healing spell, anything to slow the bleeding, repair enough of the damage to keep Brunix alive.
    “Get a healer!” he yelled to the watchers. They stared mutely at him, unmoving.
    Why waste a healer on an outland half-breed? The stray thought penetrated Jack’s mind.
    Outraged at the arrogant prejudice of these people, he found a small spark of magic lingering within him. Instinctively he sought to draw more magic from the burned-out ley lines beneath his feet. Blue sparks shot from his hand into Brunix’s gaping chest wound as the empty ley line shuddered from the strain of his tapping.
    Brunix’s eyes fluttered opened, unfocused, filled with pain. “Save the lace!” he whispered. “Save her. . . .”
    Jack leaned closer to catch the man’s dying words. A long-fingered hand grasped the neck of his tunic in a futile attempt to communicate.
    “Katrina. Save her and the lace from Simeon.” A death rattle choked Brunix and he collapsed, staring into the nothingness of the void between the planes of existence.
    The stone paving of the square trembled as if a hundred war steeds galloped toward the murder scene.
    Jack looked up for the source of the disturbance. The instability of the Kardia beneath his feet faded to nothing. A sense of the familiar rocked his senses.
    Just before the cave-in at the mine, a similar vibration had told him of the impending disaster. Had his instinctive reaching for power caused the ley line to crumble?
    Instead of the prison of tunnels dug deep within the planet to trap him at the time of disaster, he faced a ring of grim-faced palace guards.
    “You are under arrest for murder.” The magician who had invaded the factory last night stepped forward, a pair of iron manacles in his hand.
    “He removed some outland garbage from our city!” protested an onlooker. A verbal protest only. No one stepped forward to defend Jack.
    Praying that his protective delusion of blond hair wouldn’t evaporate, Jack visualized his armor snapping in place. Then he activated the spell with memorized trigger words.
    Cold iron enclosed his wrists.
    There was no magic left in his body or in the land. His staff was hidden back at the factory. Once more he was a prisoner and unable to save himself.
    Hands slapped his body, roughly, in search of hidden weapons. The parchment crackled.
    “What have we here, evidence of conspiracy with magic?” The slight man chortled at his public display of accusing Jack of more than just murder. He held the unrolled parchment up to the light for all to see.
    Black ink sprawled across the page in a jumble of rectangular shapes and straight slashes. Under observation and bright sunlight, the runes flashed into unnatural red sigils. The parchment thinned. A bright circle of sunlight at the center charred and burst into flame.
    Gasps of superstitious awe and fear rose from the crowd. A dozen hands signed the cross of the Stargods. Two dozen more crossed wrists and flapped their hands in the more ancient ward against evil.
    In seconds, the parchment disappeared into useless ash.
    “A trick with a glass,” Jack murmured so that only the magician heard.
    “Perhaps,” he shrugged and scattered the last of the ashes across Brunix’s lifeless body. “Tricks keep the peasants afraid and cost no energy.”
    The magician gestured for two burly men, easily a head taller than Jack, to take him into custody.
    “Lock him in the warded dungeon. The rest of you come with me. We still have to capture the girl.”
     
    Katrina wiggled the long divider pin that had been a gift from Brunix into the tiny crack between two wall panels. The hidden safe was deep in this wall. The door would open under pressure upon a secret trigger at the same time as a key released the lock. The long pin would have to be