The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

despaired of ever seeing her again, feeling her quiet presence at his side as he woke in the middle of the night, hearing her gentle laughter at his awful jokes, finding the right rhyme to accompany his spells. His world emptied of all emotion. He couldn’t give way to grief now. He had to be ready to help her at the first sign of trouble.
    If he ever saw her again.
    There, nearly invisible against the rising blackness of water, he caught sight of a darting form in the water. A white blob of a face appeared at the wave’s crest, gasping and choking. Myri’s long white arm that looked amazingly like a silvery wing, reached out to curl around the man’s neck. The man fought her grasp briefly, then collapsed into the water’s embrace.
    Moments later, Myri dragged the man up the gravelly shore. Her body once more the same as he had watched dive into the waves; a slender woman wearing a drenched shift that might as well have been as transparent as a dragon wing. Tiny rocks cut into her bare feet. The greedy sea absorbed the thin rivulets of red, sucking them away.
    He ran to her, catching her in his arms as her knees crumpled. He clutched her close against his chest, pushing his remaining warmth and strength into her. Others pulled the choking man to safety.
    “The others,” Myri said as she turned within his embrace. “I must save the others.”
    “Take some deep breaths. Clear your lungs,” he ordered.
    “I’ll be all right as long as I know you are safe here, on shore. In the water, it’s . . . I’m . . . I can’t explain. It’s like I become the water. The dragons are with me, telling me what to do, how to avoid the rocks and changing currents. I wonder if I am part dragon the way I understand them.”
    “Merlep mew!” Amaranth screeched as he plunged into the next wave, his wings tight against his body, claws extended.
    The sight of his diving body triggered a memory in Nimbulan. He saw again the black creature flying into the column of flame that guarded the abandoned monastery.
    Stargods! Amaranth had joined with the guardian spirit to test Nimbulan and Quinnault. Amaranth? Why hadn’t he been with Myri?
    The spirit had disappeared. Briefly, he wondered if Amaranth was the guardian or had absorbed it.
    “I have to go. Amaranth can’t keep him above water for long.” Myri twisted from Nimbulan’s arms and dove into the next huge wave.
    In the trough, between crests, the white blob of another face showed briefly. The dark speck that might be Amaranth swam beside the man, front talons and mouth clamped into the collar of his shirt.
    Before Nimbulan’s eyes, the flywacket grew and faded into transparency. His wings stretched out and out and out, to become life-saving floats.
    A dozen terrifying heartbeats later, Myri reached the unconscious fisherman and began the exhausting process of dragging him back to shore.
    Lightning flashed across the sky, blinding Nimbulan for an eye blink. When he looked back to find Myri, he couldn’t distinguish her from Amaranth. They both seemed half dragon in the weird light. Then Amaranth retracted the spectacular transparent wings and dove into the next wave, once more a black flywacket.
    Myri remained silvery and unnaturally buoyant until she reached shallow water. When she stood up, dragging the half-drowned fisherman, she was fully human once more.
    Nimbulan shook his head free of the hallucinations and dashed to help her bring the fisherman ashore.
    Three more times Myri and Amaranth pulled men from the jaws of the Dragon’s Teeth. Three more times, Nimbulan watched helplessly as they performed impossible feats of strength and agility within the crushing currents. Each time they dove, he was certain he’d lost them forever. The emptiness of his life without the witchwoman and her familiar nearly choked him.
    The fifth time Myri dragged a fisherman onto the beach Amaranth crawled out with her, bedraggled, exhausted, miserable. They both collapsed against the sharp gravel, in danger of drowning in two inches of water that swirled about their faces. Nimbulan scooped up the flywacket, who now looked like an ordinary half-drowned cat, with one arm while he grabbed Myri around her waist. He tried lifting her clear of the water. Burning pain slashed across his partially healed wound.
    Yoshi and Powwell dashed to grab Myri as Nimbulan lost his grasp of her.
    “No more, Myri. Don’t go into the water anymore.” Yoshi said as he carried her to safety.
    Powwell