The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

watch and participate in the dancing.
    Did she need to heal someone in the village?
    (East. Go east. We will give you safety and rest. Do not turn aside.)
    “I want to go to the village,” Myri replied to the voices in her head. “They might need me.” Why shouldn’t she run away from her quest for just a few hours? She’d followed the compulsion to go east for over a moon now. Surely whatever called her could wait a little longer. As long as the first dance at least.
    She doubted they’d allow her to dance in this village. The patterns required equal numbers of men and women to balance the forces of nature. Unlike the Spring Equinox Festival, partners of the harvest dance were usually determined long before the celebration date. But she wanted to watch, to tap her foot in rhythm with the music and sing along with the age-old tunes.
    Myri ran up the hill to catch a first glimpse of people emerging from their homes as the sun crossed the horizon.
    The wind joined her healing talent and circled around her in a fierce howl, pushing her back east by southeast. Lumbird bumps marched up and down her arms. Wordless pleas carried by the moving air begged her to follow without delay.
    Her talent threatened to drag her due north faster than she could run.
    (Save your strength. Put aside your talent until you have more training. Go east. east and a little south, avoid the north.) The voices took on a pleading tone. (Do not linger in this area. There is danger to you.) The voices urged her to alter her route.
    She sat down on the damp grass in protest. Her talent and the anonymous voices warred within her every time she encountered people who needed her healing. She was getting tired of the compulsion always choosing her path for her.
    “I want to watch the dancing for a few moments.”
    The wind died. Her talent still reached out, sensing pain and suffering, but no longer dragging her in its wake. The voices silenced for a moment.
    She straightened her skirts and draped her cloak over her shoulders, spreading her arms just a little so the cloak billowed behind her like a giant wing.
    “Let’s go Amaranth. Maybe we can share a cup of cider and a crust of new bread.”
    Her mouth watered. Dry journey rations and creek water didn’t seem enough right now. Her stomach growled in agreement.
    A distant drum sounded the rhythm of a pulse—softly at first, but gathering volume and tempo with each beat. Myri hurried over the crest of the hill. She didn’t want to miss a moment of the first dance of thanksgiving. For four years now she’d participated in the dancing wherever she and Magretha made their home. This ritual offering of the first and best of the harvest, of all those dedicated to the Stargods, seemed the most important. Spring festivals, with all their emphasis on fertility, tended to be wild, drunken affairs. Autumn rituals brought people into harmony with the Stargods as they displayed their gratitude and reverence for the season’s bounty.
    She lifted her voice in a song that followed the same cadence as the drum.
    The Kardia pulsed beneath her bare feet in unison with her song and the drum. Feminine voices from the village joined hers as people burst from the huts, wearing their brightest and newest clothing.
    “Mew?” Amaranth asked in his cat voice. He wove a path of protection around and between her ankles. His sides heaved again and a wingtip protruded from the concealing folds of skin and fur. His preparation for flight revealed the depth of his agitation.
    Myri came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the common.
    “Yes, Amaranth. I know something is not right here.” Myri bent to scratch his ears. His mild protective spell extended to her.
    A circle of pounded dirt around the Equinox Pylon bespoke of many generations of ritual dances. Nine men, nine women, nine drummers, and nine children must circle the decorated three-times-three poles of the Pylon. Only healthy people filled with life and joy should participate in the dance. Nine, the sacred number of the Stargods. Always nines and always a balance of male and female.
    But only one man joined the women, and he half crippled. Beardless boys, their faces set in dutiful concentration, filled the positions of the other men. A solitary ancient woman, well-past childbearing held a padded stick over the solitary drum. The young women in their prime seemed most out of place. None appeared pregnant from the Vernal Equinox fertility rituals.
    None of