The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

been separated from Wiggles for all the weeks since we left the clearing, until yesterday. The ferret wasn’t with her while we were in the village and was still missing when she came to me in the palace. He found her yesterday. Those special bonds brought him through hundreds of miles of mountains to reclaim her. Her sanity might not have survived another separation so soon.”
    Powwell stopped his struggles, aghast at Myri’s words.
    “What do you mean, she and Wiggles were separated?”
    “He wasn’t with her when Yaassima first brought Kalen to me, right after . . . right after Amaranth died and I was so distraught I couldn’t care for my own baby. Kalen must have felt much the same when she first arrived in Hanassa without Wiggles to comfort her.”
    “She had the blasted ferret tucked into her sleeves when Televarn pushed us into the dragongate near the village. Wiggles was with her the first week we were in Hanassa. I didn’t see him again, but you know how he hides.” Every muscle in Powwell’s body froze with fear. Fear that what he had perceived as the truth was false. Fear that Kalen had indeed deserted him by choice.
    Thorny gibbered at him from his tunic pocket. Powwell couldn’t understand all of the rapid ripples of emotions broadcast by the hedgehog. He did catch a sense of being told to run, Run quickly, back the way we came. Then the memory of being dragged through the dragongate.
    Silence echoed in Powwell’s ears.
    He fought the conviction that Thorny had heard Kalen tell her familiar to run away so she could avoid leaving by way of the dragongate with Powwell and Myri and Nimbulan—her family.
    “Where . . . where was the ferret when Kalen came to me? She said Wiggles wasn’t in Hanassa.” Myri, too, seemed afraid to move lest she discover an ugly truth.
    “I don’t know.” Powwell shook his head in denial of the entire issue. But Kalen’s duplicity wouldn’t go away.
    “When I first discovered evidence of Televarn’s Water spell, I saw tiny pawprints beside the trickle of water,” Nimbulan said. His left hand came up, palm out. The habitual gesture told Powwell that he sought information. “A moment before the trap crashed over me, I saw a small animal dash past me. At the time I thought it one of the rat-catching ferrets Quinnault keeps in the palace who was running from the wall of Water. Later, the guards searching for Televarn also reported a ferret in the clearing with the Rover. They disappeared together.”
    “Kalen and Televarn? I won’t believe it.” Powwell cringed inside, wanting to run far and fast—run from the idea of Kalen corrupted by the slimy Rover.
    “I caught Kalen in a terrible lie at the moment Wiggles returned to her. She told me Nimbulan had drowned.” Myri clutched at her husband’s hand as if to reassure herself that he lived indeed.
    “Kalen hated Televarn. She hated Hanassa and . . . and . . .” Powwell choked on the next thought. “And yet she thrived there. I watched her daily as she blossomed. I wanted to believe it was womanhood coming upon her and her love for me.”
    “The brat thrived on power, not love,” Scarface added, spitting into the dirt. “I saw her often enough in the city. The first week you arrived, she was always with Televarn. Even after the Rover chieftain left the city on his assassination commission, she never went out to the fields with the work parties, but she carried messages for the Rover clan.”
    “What do you know about it? You never met her!” Powwell wrenched free of the magician’s now gentle grasp. Anger exploded in his mind. He needed to slam his fist into something. Scarface’s ugly visage was the nearest satisfactory target.
    Scarface caught his wrist easily, restraining his blow.
    “Televarn used the girl as a messenger. She came to me and my men several times. I owed Televarn—some favors, favors that I resented and he never let me forget. I watched the girl manipulate people with words and with magic. She inflated men’s self-esteem with promises of sex with herself or the Rover women. She hinted at influence with Televarn and Yaassima’s growing dependence upon the Rovers. She was using Televarn’s plans to depose Yaassima to elevate herself to a position of power in the new regime.”
    “I loved her,” Powwell said. Defeat weighed heavily in him. He knew Scarface spoke the truth. He had watched Kalen’s manipulations. She had told him that she wanted to be in a position so