The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

hurt—her reminder of their problems, her punch on his arm, and the glare of a dozen rainbows streaming from the sky into the courtyard of the school. The courtyard that at one time had contained the well of ley lines.
    “What ails you, Lan?” Myri caressed his arm with healing touches.
    “I’ll be all right when I have eaten again and slept a bit,” he said, distracted by the sight of six adult dragons cavorting through the air like dandelion fluff. They soared high, dove with incredible swiftness, turned in a tail length and flew loops around each other. Their play contained an element of deep satisfaction and joy that he’d never seen in them. The males seemed to glow brighter along their colored wing veins and horns, the primary colors pulsed deeper and truer, not fading into obscurity with the rest of their crystal fur.
    Shayla was easiest to pick out in the happy antics. Every color in the spectrum rippled along her fur in constantly shifting prisms. Waves of deep satisfaction washed over the dragons, spilling into the crowd of human onlookers.
    Nimbulan remembered a day when he, too, had felt like that. The day he first made love to Myri.
    His need for sleep vanished, replaced with a deeper need. He wrapped his arm around Myri’s shoulders, pulling her closer, tucking her warmth against his side, inhaling her sweet fragrance.
    “No time for sleep.” Lyman handed him half a round loaf of bread and a hunk of cheese. “We’ve a spell to work and an invasion to repulse.”
    “I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Nimbulan mumbled around a huge bite of bread. Soft and warm from the oven, it nearly melted as he chewed. Energy began to creep back into his veins. “Did the dragons find us a focus?”
    “I believe so.” Lyman pointed to the center of the courtyard, nearly bouncing in his enthusiasm.
    There, atop the mortar that obscured from all senses the ley line well, rested a huge black table. Round, sitting on a single pedestal. Gleaming black, the rising sun glinted off the seamless surface.
    “It’s made of glass! Black glass,” Nimbulan shouted, running to examine the treasure more closely. “Black glass forged by dragon fire! We can work the spell.”

Chapter 39
     
    “I am frightened of this spell, Shayla,” Myri confided. (You have done this before , daughter , ) Shayla replied as she rose on a thermal above the courtyard
    Myri looked at the large glass table, a wondrous treasure, rather than at the dragon who had given birth to her spirit but not her body. Only one or two sources of sand clean enough to produce usable glass existed in Kardia Hodos. Man-made fires didn’t burn hot enough to use the other sands. But dragon breath did.
    (You must be the eyes of the magicians. They cannot view the placement of their wall otherwise. You must let your mind fly with us.)
    “When I flew before, it was always with Amaranth, my twin, my otherself. I knew his mind better than I knew my own. We blended easily and he always returned me to my own body afterward.” She knew this task was essential to the success of Nimulan’s spell and the safety of the kingdom. She knew it. And yet she feared the outcome would change everything she held dear.
    The outcome or the process? Dread hung around her like an unwelcome ghost.
    (Now you are alone in your fragile human body. Blend with me, and we will soar through the clouds. Trust me to know when the time is right to end the joining.)
    “How will I feed the images we see to Nimbulan?” She looked to where the Commune placed chairs around the table, crowding them together to accommodate all of the masters, journeymen, and apprentices. An aura of power began to pulse stronger and stronger as the chain of magicians grew. Like heat waves on the desert sands, the power spread. It pushed outsiders away from the table, the joined magicians, and the spell.
    Nimbulan sat in the place closest to the center of the school buildings. Lyman sat on his right, Scarface to his left, and a timid Powwell sat close by. Yaala, bathed and clothed in a fine gown of pale green, stood with Quinnault and his foreign queen. She looked like Yaassima’s daughter now, a princess in exile rather than the scruffy desert rat who haunted the chambers of the pit. Maarie Kaathliin held Amaranth so that Myri would be free to link communication between the dragons and the magicians. The new queen cooed at the baby and played with her lovingly, absolutely enchanted with the