The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

blood. The fruit of the Tambootie tree gave a crystalline sparkle to the auras of each piece of wooden furniture in his room. The simple lines of cot, chest, and table glowed with new elegance.
    The nerve endings in his fingers and toes burned with new sensitivity. He drew power from the energy of wood, fabric, and stone. Different power from what the Tambootie leaves allowed him to tap, but power all the same.
    He reached out to caress the aura above his worktable. The yellow-white energy fed him in ways food neglected.
    He needed nothing more. Thank the Stargods Ackerly had thought to collect some timboor in his pockets the other night. Perhaps this kind of magic energy that allowed him to see everything so clearly was the key to combining magic. If he could see the individual components of an aura or, better yet, mesh his thoughts precisely with another man’s, they could join and magnify their powers.
    Carefully, Nimbulan folded the power around him in a spell of listening. The thoughts of Haakkon, Powwell, and Zane whipped through his mind with the lightning speed of their youth. Thoughts of lessons and chores, of the mysteries of women, and mixed resentment and awe of their masters. They asked themselves questions about magic and about life.
    Too unformed and unskilled. The boys couldn’t help him now.
    Nimbulan sent his spell deeper into the old monastery, seeking Maalin and Jaanus, the two apprentices in the library. Their thoughts lingered on the smell of baking bread and the stacks of books yet to be cataloged.
    For once, Quinnault de Tanos had not joined them.
    Nimbulan found himself missing the lord’s enthusiasm and his company. He reached out with his spell, seeking the brightly colored thoughts of the man whose patronage made the school possible.
    He’d never managed to penetrate de Tanos’ thoughts in his presence. If he could break through the lord’s natural armor with the help of timboor, then he could read any man. That reading—rather a blending of thoughts and auras—now seemed essential to joining magic. Quinnault’s thoughts remained elusive.
    He needed familiarity. Ackerly. His oldest friend. They’d studied and worked together since Nimbulan was ten and Ackerly was twelve. Ackerly’s mind and actions were almost as familiar to Nimbulan as his own.
    Out of the stone buildings, across the wide courtyard to the beaten path and the causeway between two islands. The tide was full and the chain of boulders and land covered with water. The physical obstacles did not stop Nimbulan’s questing magic. He flew across to the big island with its farmhouse and fields and the squat stone keep where de Tanos made his home now.
    From the big island he wandered up the River Coronnan, seeing every twist and cove with his mind as if his body truly floated above the surging river. Past the battlefield where he’d had to kill Keegan to save two armies. That wound still pained him, more so than his guilt for deserting Druulin, Boojlin, and Caasser the night before they died in battle on the same field eighteen years ago. If he and Ackerly had stayed, would they have found a way to control the awful spell that destroyed everything in its path? Or would they, too, have died in screaming, burning agony?
    No answers came to him from generations of ghosts that haunted the battlefield. He traveled on, upriver.
    Many leagues distant, Nimbulan paused his seeking magic at the river gate of Sambol. Perched at the head of navigable waters on the river, at the base of a mountain pass and juncture of several trade roads, Sambol played host to merchants from throughout the known world. Anything could be purchased in the market stalls of the city, be it legal, moral, or not.
    This was where Ackerly had come to purchase a new supply of Tambootie for Nimbulan and his students.
    From his distant listening post, Nimbulan scanned the myriad minds of the city for a familiar syntax, inflection, and accent. He heard jewelers from Jehab, lace traders from SeLenicca, captains of mercenaries from Rossemeyer, and spice brokers from Varnicia. At last he picked up the educated tones of a magician haggling with a pottery maker in a small booth next to a shadowy alley. Any number of substances could be secreted in one of those utilitarian pots. Including the precious Tambootie.
    Ackerly finished his bargaining. He withdrew five gold coins from the pouch Nimbulan had given him, one at a time as if counting and regretting every coin.