The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

spell by closing her eyes and turning her back on him.
    “You should have considered your retreat before you ventured this far. Leave my beach any way you can. I care not if you fall or ruin your clothing. I care only to be alone.” She started walking toward the cliff and her high cave as fast as the soft sand clutching her feet allowed.
    With Amaranth still draped limply over her left shoulder, she reached for tiny finger and toeholds. Stretch, brace, cling. She mounted the sheer wall of sandstone smoothly. She forced her concentration away from the Rover’s pretty eyes and into her climb. She forced her thoughts onto the fish that cooked slowly over the coals. She dared not lose herself in contemplation of weak sunlight glinting off layers of yellow and gray rock. Watching how her blood rose close to the skin beneath her fingernails, turning them lavender, wouldn’t gain her the protection and solitude of the small cave she had claimed.
    The sound of small stones tumbling in the far curve of the cliff made her pause. Balancing on tiny knobs of rock, she risked a look down and to the far right. Televarn mounted the cliff near where a volcanic headland jutted into the bay. The jagged rocks and slopes offered an easier climb than straight up the smooth sandstone where Myri sought the shelter of her cave.
    The Rover glanced her way. A big grin split his face. His white teeth showed clearly against his tanned face and dark clothing. His hat lay against his back at a rakish angle, slung in place by a thong around his neck.
    S’murghit, he was beautiful.
    “I’ll be back, pretty witchwoman. When you need a man, call my name into the wind.” He raised a hand in salute.
    The unstable rock beneath his other hand crumbled in his grip. He lost his precarious balance, windmilling his arms as he fell into mixed sand and gravel.
    The incoming tide rushed at his unmoving head.
    “Now I have to go rescue him.” Myri sighed. “I’ll never be rid of him.” She knew she couldn’t leave him. Her talent wouldn’t allow her to ignore anyone who needed healing.

Chapter 12
     
    “W hy do I have to sweep a clean floor?” Powwell, the newest apprentice, pouted at Nimbulan.
    “Because we can’t afford servants,” Nimbulan replied. No need to tell the twelve-year-old boy that sweeping their new home was a test. He needed to know how long before the three recruits figured out how to manipulate the brooms with magic. They could all light fires with a concentrated effort. That ability had proved their inborn talent and gained them places as apprentices. None of them could yet move an object with his mind.
    Their minds seemed equally closed to the concept of reading and ciphering. Only magicians were allowed, by law and by tradition, to use the arcane knowledge contained within letters and numbers. The newest boys refused to believe themselves worthy of this secret skill.
    Nimbulan spent nearly all of his time coaxing the boys into learning. Not for the first time in the last few weeks, Nimbulan regretted his haste in seeking new apprentices and withdrawing to the monastery. He needed more help than Ackerly, Lyman, and his older apprentices offered. If he had other teachers to work with the boys, he could spend more time experimenting and cataloging the massive library.
    “But why does the floor need to be swept at all? It’s clean.” The boy stared up at Nimbulan. A need to know poured forth from his gray eyes. Determination rode firmly on his shoulders.
    Sunlight streaming in through the narrow windows added a glint of auburn to his muddy brown hair. More often than not, any trace of red hair accompanied magical talent.
    Buried deep inside the boy’s stubborn brain there must be intelligence, or he’d not have figured out how to start fires upon command rather than at random. Nimbulan had to draw it forth by devising ways to stimulate Powwell’s curiosity rather than answering every question.
    Powwell assumed Ackerly’s posture when demanding an answer from Nimbulan when Nimbulan was lost in thought or distracted. He almost chuckled at the one thing the boy had learned as an apprentice.
    Nimbulan bit his lower lip, resisting the urge to say, “Because I said so.” Too often that had happened during his own training, and he’d wasted valuable lessons because he defied the statement and his tutor. He’d never given up defying Druulin in the all the years he had served the irascible old magician. Right up until the