The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

powers were fully grown, you’d not have defeated him. We are both getting old,” Ackerly grumbled. “Old and losing our stamina. That ungrateful youngster wouldn’t have wasted his strength liberating your soul from a pile of ashes.” Ackerly lifted his foot to scatter the residue with a kick.
    “No!” Nimbulan pushed him aside to keep him from spreading Keegan’s soul too thin to regather and liberate.
    “I like to think my apprentice would do me this one last service. I tried to teach him respect for others and for the power we wield.”
    “He only wanted to learn the spells; not the right way to use them,” Ackerly spat. “Go back to your pavilion, Nimbulan. Let me perform this chore. I may not be a great magician who can weave the Kardia into my spells, but I can send this ungrateful wretch where he belongs.”
    “ ’Tis my responsibility. I caused his final spell to backlash.” Nimbulan shored up his sagging willpower. Ackerly’s manner suggested an animosity toward Keegan that would stand in the way of a proper weaving. Nimbulan could have plucked Ackerly’s true intentions and the source of his grievance from his mind. He wouldn’t.
    “I’ll speed the boy on his way to his next existence. Druulin wouldn’t have bothered. You know as well as I that I must do this.”

Chapter 2
     
    N imbulan rummaged in the pockets of his formal robes for a small wand of the Tambootie tree affixed with a perfect faceted crystal.
    Sadly, he looked through the crystal into the pile of ashes and chanted.
    “Walk with me, son of my learning,
Walk with me one final time.
Walk with me the paths of life,
Walk with me to the place of your yearning.”
     
    “Greedy wretch doesn’t deserve this.” Ackerly turned aside, grumbling under his breath.
    Nimbulan ignored his companion as his mind sought a deeper contact with the essence of his apprentice. Bright green flames and burning pain flashed from the crystal into his weary eyes.
    One deep breath, hold three counts, let go three counts. A second breath filled his lungs and released. On the third inhalation he found access to the void between the planes of existence. His spirit lifted free of his weary body and found solace in the black nothingness. A second soul stood beside him, dim and unformed.
    Coils of pulsing colors that represented the lives of all the souls Nimbulan had encountered in the nearly fifty years of his current existence sprang into view. A silver umbilical, tinged with blue, symbolized his own life. It wound away from his sight into a tangle of life forces.
    Seeing others represented in symbolic colors was easy. Only once had Nimbulan glimpsed the full texture of his own life and aura—during the day and the night of his rite of passage into adulthood. On the eve of his twelfth birthday, his tutors sent him to a windowless stone room, with only a Tambootie wood fire for heat and light. His trance, induced by the mind-altering smoke, had been deep and profound. After thirty-six years as a magician, he still didn’t understand the reflections of reality that he had seen. But ever afterward, he knew the true colors of his life-pulse in the void. A rare achievement.
    Now, during his saddest trip into the void, he saw life forces of clear crystal, reflecting all colors dancing around him. The crystal dominated the tangle of symbolic lives. He’d never seen them before—didn’t know who they represented.
    Beside him the dim essence of a fading soul drifted away. The red umbilical dulled toward gray.
    Nimbulan had to weave Keegan’s life force into the tangle of umbilicals soon, or he’d be lost forever, denied his next existence.
    “Walk with me, son of my learning,
Eternal pain is not your due.
My silver path to you I lend,
Walk with me a path we are earning.
     
     
    “Walk with me, son of my learning,
Walk with me one final time.
Find with me the paths of life.
Walk with me till seasons cease turning.”
    A great shuddering possessed Nimbulan. The red chain beside him regained color and vibrancy. It coiled up through him, encasing Nimbulan’s silvery-blue umbilical. All of their knowledge joined, their memories twined, and their secrets unfolded. They were one man, one life force, one mind.
    The vast tangle of life forces shifted and collapsed into images of men, generations of men, marching in intricate patterns, sometimes peaceful, sometimes at odds with each other. Magicians ringed the intricate dance patterns, calling