The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

The last of Nimbulan’s savings.
    Nimbulan watched as his assistant brushed his hand across the side of his face as if swatting a fly between placing each coin into the merchant’s hand. As the last coin exchanged hands, Ackerly slapped his pockets as if searching for something. An expression of alarm spread across his features.
    Nimbulan chuckled inwardly. Ackerly was probably presenting some ploy to recover one or more of the coins. Money and bargaining had always been a mystery to Nimbulan. Ackerly, however, excelled, keeping the two of them and their apprentices fed and sheltered on the meager allowance Nimbulan paid. The coins Ackerly had earned when he and Nimbulan fixed the horse race so many years ago had lasted them both for several years. They’d used the money for extra food and warmer clothes in the markets Druulin passed through once the boys started traveling with him.
    Confident of Ackerly’s miserly instincts to cut the best bargain possible, Nimbulan returned to the river and a lazy mind trip back to the islands at the mouth of the River Coronnan.
    Briefly he circled the buildings on the big island. If he could find Ackerly in so distant a place, surely he could sense Quinnault. The lord’s mental armor might be unconscious, but it also had a pattern of light and dark that swirled in a confusing whirlpool.
    Only people with the placid concerns of farm chores and housekeeping met his soaring mind. Into the keep and up the single stairwell his otherself flew. At the top of the stairs, he hesitated. Would the lord be in the public reception room to the right or in his private chambers to the left?
    Mentally shrugging his shoulders, Nimbulan listened to the left. Quinnault’s quiet breathing betrayed his presence. Quickly, the magician slid into the mind of his patron. A thin barrier blocked his entry. He pushed gently. A little harder.
    A worn parchment scrawled with numbers swam before his vision. Smudged and worn spots that had been scraped free of ink blurred the new ink. Column after column of entries tangled and straightened to make some sense. Nimbulan saw the ledger through Quinnault’s eyes!
    He felt the lord’s quill pen in their hand. Heard the sound of the pen scratching across the parchment. Knew the rhythmic intake and expulsion of air through lungs younger and stronger than his own.
    Black swirling numbness rose up before him, blocking the sight of the ledger. Physical sensation ceased.
    Where was he? Who was he? Endless darkness stretched before him. No light. No sound. No body to feel with.
     
    Ackerly swatted in annoyance at the soft buzzing beside his head. S’murghin’ flies. The city was full of the filthy pests today. He’d never been bothered by them like this on his previous visits to Sambol.
    The soft flutter near his right temple brushed past him again. He tried to ignore it. His business in Sambol was more important than the annoyance of an insect.
    He fished the fifth gold coin out of his purse reluctantly and placed it in the outstretched palm of the pottery vendor before swatting at the persistent fly.
    Silently he gloated at the number of coins left in the purse. Nimbulan had given him twenty pieces of gold with instructions to use it all if necessary to purchase the necessary Tambootie. Overuse of the drug had rotted the Battlemage’s mind. Tambootie rarely cost over three coins and never more than eight. Even when the wars and trade embargo inflated prices, and the only sources were in the black market, he could always bargain to a reasonable level. Who else would want it but the decreasing number of great mages?
    Nimbulan didn’t think logically anymore because of the drug. What he didn’t know about prices helped Ackerly. His employer would never miss the remaining fifteen coins.
    Well, he might miss fifteen coins, but not another five or eight. Maybe ten.
    If Nimbulan had wanted to save money, he should have given him copper and lead. Base metals were for spending. Gold was for saving. Gold was for hoarding. Gold was for polishing and counting.
    Ackerly always collected stipend from Kammeryl d’Astrismos in gold and he never spent it. He spent Nimbulan’s money, adding a few of those coins to his hoard as a commission for making good bargains. He never spent his own money.
    A wave of resentment washed over him at returning any of the leftover coins. He argued with himself that some, at least, had to be returned to avoid suspicion and keep Nimbulan