The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume I: Volume I

candles gave off a lot of oily smoke and a weak flame. Spells became misdirected in the clouds of ugly smoke. The good beeswax tapers had all been confiscated by Lord Krej and his generals.
    Apprentices, too, had been commandeered into the army. There was no magic left for them to work. Therefore the University had no right to reserve boys from service to their country. Of the thirty apprentices entrusted to Baamin a few weeks ago, only eight showed any rogue potential. He had lied and lied and lied again about the boys’ ill health and weak constitutions so the recruiting officers would overlook them.
    “Now, boys,” Baamin soothed his irritable charges. “We’ll try it one more time. Find a core of magic deep within you.” He paused long enough to allow them to do this. “Close your eyes and keep a strong image of your receiver in your mind. Now send the magic through the flame into the glass and onto your partner.”
    Only the sound of an occasional raspy breath broke the silence of the room. Baamin’s gaze wandered to the newest apprentice, sitting in the corner, away from the other boys and their contaminating colds. His concentration was absolute. The rest of the boys might not have existed. His candle burned steady, bright and clear, unlike the other boys’, magnified by the glass he held in front of it.
    The kitchen boy. Who would have thought the stupid drudge, who possessed only a charming smile and a willingness to please, would turn out to be the most adept rogue magician of the lot?
    Baamin didn’t know how else to explain this newest phenomenon. The boy couldn’t gather magic. So he had been barred from the classrooms years ago. He could, however, drag up enormous quantities of the stuff from some other unknown source. They really should give him a name. “Boy” just didn’t seem to describe him anymore.
    “Did anyone ever give you a name?” he asked under his breath.
    The boy shook his head. He was concentrating on sending the flame through his precious shard of glass across the room to his study partner.
    Across the room, one of the boys sitting in a circle sat up in surprise. The summons had reached him. No one else was having the same success.
    “Would you like a name?” Baamin prodded.
    The boy nodded again as he prepared to receive his partner’s attempt.
    “What name?” This was why the boy was considered stupid. He was incapable of carrying on a conversation.
    “Only when I’m concentrating on something else,” he replied to Baamin’s thoughts.
    “What?” The senior magician had to sit, hurriedly. The boy was thought-reading, without a trace of a magic umbilical and while learning a new spell! This was unheard of.
    “Nimbulan could do it.” The boy sat back in his chair as his partner once more tried to direct enough magic to send his flame through the glass and across the room.
    “Did you read that in his journal, too?” Baamin felt moisture on his brow. The room was frigid and he was perspiring. What was he going to do with the boy?
    “You’re going to train me. That’s what you’re going to do with me.”
    “Stargods!” Baamin kept his mind closed. The boy looked up, puzzled.
    “You shut me out.”
    “It’s impolite to read another’s thoughts without an express invitation.”
    “How else am I supposed to know what’s happening around me?”
    “How long have you had this . . . er . . . talent?”
    “Don’t you have it, too?”
    Baamin’s head threatened to separate from his body. All the blood rushed to his stomach and tried to turn that beleaguered organ upside down. The hot moisture on his brow turned icy.
    “Lesson is over,” he announced to the boys. “Pick new partners and practice going from one room to the next. We’ll meet again after supper.” The boys rushed from the room, eager for food and replenishment. Baamin snagged one collar before its owner could escape.
    “Pick a name for yourself.” His tone commanded the boy to obey without hesitation. He didn’t try a compulsion spell; it wouldn’t work. Like the truth spell, the boy would just absorb it, dissect it for any new knowledge, and likely turn it back on the throwing magician.
    “Like what?” The boy’s eyes opened wide, revealing dark brown windows that begged him to open his mind again.
    The senior magician resolutely kept it closed. He knew too many secrets to allow this untried boy unrestrained access to them. But then the boy had probably been private to state