The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

there like a nimbus of humans and be happy.”
    Finally Myri swallowed the panic in her breast and looked where Kalen pointed. Letting her magic talent flow freely, without plan or push, her eyes followed Amaranth’s antics in the sky. He traced the outline of a huge dragon. Glimmers of crystal wings and body outlined in a faint swirl of rainbow colors jumped into her vision.
    Amaranth leaped to another point, and she saw a second dragon, silvery in body and outlined in green. Several more creatures appeared before her, each bearing a different hue on wing veins and spinal horns. Only the massive central dragon held all the colors around the edges.
    Myri’s heart beat double time. Her lungs labored to draw air. “I see them now,” she admitted. Joy replaced her anxiety. Lightness filled her until she thought she could lift free of the Kardia and soar with the magnificent crystal beasts.
    (Welcome home, my child. You all have much to learn. Come, eat your provisions, drink from the stream. We will begin to teach you a new form of magic when you are rested.)
    Warmth and love folded around Myri as if the dragon had wrapped her in soft wings, like she would one of her own dragonets.
     
    “The dogs have found something,” the sergeant blurted out, rushing through the underbrush toward Moncriith. “The trail leads straight through the woods, no apparent path at all, but the scent is strong and the dogs are eager to make up for lost time.”
    “Then we must be off. The witchwoman and those children must be brought to justice before the spring campaign season begins.”
    “Yes, Sieur. Children, Sieur?” The seargeant tugged at his maroon-and-green tunic as if it suddenly fit too tight. His face paled and a tightness thinned his lips. “We have never hunted children before, Sieur.”
    “I will make an example of both of them. They deserted my just cause to warn the chief demon of my pursuit. They forsake the people of Coronnan so that they may enjoy the power of demon magic. They won’t enjoy it long. Their deaths will prove to the lords once and for all that they can’t go to war with demons in their midst. And without demon magicians to protect their troops, they will think long and hard before entering battles.”
    “Coronnan will know unity at last.” The sergeant parroted Moncriith’s doctrine. His eyes remained fixed upon some distant point beyond Moncriith’s shoulder. “Freedom from war and freedom from enslavement to demon magicians. Moncriith is the prophet of the Stargods. Only he knows the truth.” He saluted the Bloodmage automatically and turned woodenly back to the task of finding Myrilandel and the children.
    Moncriith smiled to himself. The guards Kammeryl d’Astrismos had assigned to him were deep under his control. They’d never have a thought of their own again. He’d see to it even if he had to draw their blood to reinforce his spells. All Coronnan would bow to him, unquestioningly, before the end of the campaign season. His followers already regarded him as more god than priest.
     
    (The words you speak matter not. Only that you say them in unison and the words contain the essence of your requirement. Speak together as you shape the magic you have gathered into the form of your spell.) Shayla, the all color/no color female dragon, directed Nimbulan and Powwell. The silvery young dragons with primary colors on their wingtips rested on nearby boulders and clifftops—too old to cavort like children, too young for their fur to be transparent crystal. All four of the dragonets were male.
    Each of them sported a different color, no two alike. Shayla, the lone female, maintained the all color/no color crystal sparkles along her spinal horns and wing veins as well as her entire body, each hair as clear as crystal. The spiral horn sprouting from her forehead caught the light, swirled it away from the fine fur of her body, and flung it around the meadow in a dozen rainbows. The prismatic arcs terminated at a spot just behind her. The casual eye swept with the rainbows around the dragon, never seeing her magnificent beauty. Nimbulan found it impossible to look at her long. Yet he couldn’t look anywhere else.
    He drew a deep breath. Powwell did, too. They released the air at the same time and recited the simple spell formula.
    “Wisp of flame, burning bright
Travel far beyond my sight
Bring to view the other true
Pass the word of magic might.”
     
    Nimbulan concentrated on the tiny