The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

his room and watched. He is not to attend the wedding or the banquet. See to it immediately.”
    One of the men retreated. His haste up the slippery stairs suggested he was happy to remove himself from target distance of Quinnault’s temper.
    “Open the damn door, Lyman. I’m getting tired of this. I want explanations now, even if I personally have to break every bone in Piedro’s body. Nimbulan has a lot to answer for when he gets back. He’d have known a way to make sure this Rover didn’t escape.”
    “All in good time, my boy. Nimbulan’s errand was necessary. You’ll see that when he gets back.”
    “Which will be. . . ?”
    “When he gets back.”
    “Stop with your riddles, Lyman. Who released the Rover?” Quinnault began to pace, hands behind his back, shoulders hunched. He couldn’t think standing still.
    “Not any magic I know firsthand,” Lyman replied.
    “Varn magic, perhaps?” Quinnault had to ask the question that had been hovering in the back of his mind since he’d witnessed the argument between Katie and her father. He trusted Katie, but not her father.
    “Closer to home, I think,” Lyman said. He pulled his glass from a deep pocket of his blue robe and looked closer at the entire doorjamb.
    “How close?” both Quinnault and Bessel asked.
    “Kardia, Air, Fire, and Water are present. Smell the urine? That’s what he used for Water.” Lyman wrinkled his nose.
    “That sounds like a Rover spell. Piedro must be a clan chieftain, so he can’t be working with Televarn,” Quinnault mused, as he continued his pacing.
    “Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Lyman wiggled his fingers in an arcane pattern. “Bessel, help me with this.” He signaled the journeyman to come closer. The young man placed his hand upon the old man’s shoulder. Together they took three deep breaths.
    Quinnault sensed the power building between them. But he didn’t have enough magic on his own to see their auras merge and expand.
    “The original seal was broken from the outside and reset from the outside. Our Rover had help. Someone who could come and go without question. Your guards wouldn’t let just anyone down here, would they? I wish Nimbulan were here. He knows more about Rovers than I do.” Lyman continued his trance as he lifted the latch on the cell door and pushed it open. The empty room showed no signs that anyone had been there in many years.
    “Whoever helped Piedro had to have Rover blood in him,” Quinnault mused. “Nimbulan told me that much. That’s the only way their magic works is in combination with other Rovers. Someone close to me, someone trusted, with Rover blood. Who could that be?” He stopped pacing as stared at the empty cell.
    “Nimbulan is the only person I know with Rover blood. Some distant ancestor. That’s how he learned about Rover magic,” Lyman whispered.
    “Nimbulan?” Quinnault didn’t dare breathe. “I refuse to believe that Nimbulan was part of this conspiracy.” But the evidence suggested the possibility.
     
    Powwell’s ears roared with the strain of pushing the wall to intercept the rapidly flying magic darts. The roar grew louder. He needed to cover his ears. He wanted to throw up.
    The roar increased, ululating up into a screech so high-pitched he barely heard it.
    A wall of flame split the ground between himself and Moncriith. Instinctively Powwell pulled himself into a fetal ball, protecting his face and neck from attack.
    Moncriith screamed in frustrated rage. His magical darts dropped to the ground, repelled by Powwell’s wall of flame.
    Something heavy shook the ground beneath Powwell. He risked peeking in the direction of the vibrations.
    Another body joined Moncriith’s sacrificial victim. This one still breathed, though its eyes stared sightlessly upward and the mouth hung slack. Gender and personality were lost in hideous burns across half the face and burned clothing hanging on the frame in tatters. All trace of hair had been burned away, leaving a naked skull. The straight nose, high cheekbones and thin mouth were marred by the oozing raw meat of massive burns. The person curled and shrank against the cold air of the mountain pass.
    “Kaalipha?” Yaala gasped.
    Powwell raised his head a fraction higher. “Where did she come from? Where’s Kalen? If Yaassima survived the pit, then Kalen might have, too. Where were you?”
    Hope blossomed inside his chest. Kalen might still live.
    “She was in the void,” Myri whispered. “Tssonin