The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

this sheltered overhang for them long after the sun had set. The almost-cave was dry and vacant and should be a safe place to spend the night, safe from predators and conventional attack. But how did he protect them from a magic he couldn’t understand?
    “How are you feeling now?” He turned to face the girl. Her face was pale and her eyes shadowed. Still, she looked steadier than she had on the trail. Her sudden pain at the death of the squirrel bothered him. He knew he couldn’t live with that kind of emotional pain day after day. No wonder she chose to live in isolation.
    “Better,” she said quietly.
    “You felt that squirrel’s death as sharply as a knife to your own throat.” He shook his head at the memory. She had known the exact instant Wolf found his meal.
    “I often do.” This time he felt the sadness in her. She was throwing her own magic at him to help him understand. Jaylor was finding it more and more difficult to armor himself against her.
    Uneasy, he cast the twig he had been chewing into the fire, then strode to the opening. He hated being so vulnerable. Aware that he was pacing restlessly from the fire to the cliff edge, he paused to think. Wolf matched him stride for stride.
    “Did you know that squirrel?” He whirled to face her. The wolf whined at the abrupt movement. Strange that Brevelan put no blame on the animal as the source of today’s pain. The bond between them was strong.
    “No. But he was close. I had felt his presence. He was very happy to be out in the spring sunshine after a long cold winter. And Puppy was unusually triumphant.” She smiled then, dotingly. Her love for the wolf swamped Jaylor. He felt a sudden surge of jealously that such a wonderful emotion was being wasted on a wild beast.
    A breeze shifted the brush outside their shelter. Wolf shuddered against his leg. They both felt questing eyes out there, watching them from behind trees and shadows.
    Jaylor sniffed the air outside the camp. The wolf mimicked him. They both tensed just before Jaylor’s personal armor slid into place. There was something out there. Something magical.
    Doubt filled him. He wanted to armor the camp. But if he could smell magic out there, then whoever, or whatever, watched them could sense his spell and be drawn to it, like iron to a lodestone.
    “Can we protect ourselves from Old Thorm if he should come again tonight?” Brevelan’s question left no doubt that she too sensed the magic presence out there.
    The image of Old One-eye following on the trail to her clearing filled his mind. He’d been pressed against a Tambootie tree then, and the rogue magician had not seen him. Oh, he’d sensed where Jaylor had left the trail, but not where he hid. At the time, he’d thought it important to gather a handful of timboor berries.
    He’d walked through the Rover camp, invisible to his captors while timboor filled his blood. He seemed to be made of magic for several hours after that. And was totally exhausted for days when the drug wore off.
    “Maybe.” Jaylor swung back to face her. The hope that filled her eyes gave him new purpose. “Have you ever eaten timboor?”
    “The fruit of the Tambootie?” She wrapped her arms around herself and shrank away from him. Mica climbed into her lap and butted her head against the girl’s chin, as if offering comfort. “It’s poison.” Brevelan’s tone was evasive.
    “I thought so, too. Now I’m not sure. Have you ever eaten of that tree?” He concentrated his gaze on her. There was no need to use magic to pull the information from her. It would come if he could just stare her down. He’d proved that often enough with his tutors. He was amazed how disconcerted people became under a long stare. They usually began to babble within moments.
    “Once.” She barely whispered as she buried her face into the cat’s fur. Mica didn’t protest the attention.
    “Once,” he repeated. “When?”
    “When I was running away from home.”
    “Why did you eat it?” Wolf sat on Jaylor’s foot and leaned heavily against his leg. His hand reached for the animal’s ears.
    Brevelan fussed with the cat and refused to look at him.
    “Why, Brevelan? What induced you to eat a fruit you thought to be poison?”
    Finally she looked him directly in the eye. He felt something akin to what she must feel when she communicated with animals. Her fear and desperation were as strong as his own when he was in the Rover camp.
    “I was running for my life.