The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

he paused and wondered why the shroud hadn’t completely covered his body and head in tight wraps of linen soaked in preservatives. Surely Ackerly had access to necessary funerary regalia. Lord Quinnault de Tanos would have provided a shroud and servants to wash and prepare the body for burial.
    If Ackerly had bothered to ask for them. If Ackerly had informed anyone of Nimbulan’s “death.” Surely lords and peasants alike would have noticed the lack of proper burial clothes and herbs.
    “I thought you my friend, Ackerly. Couldn’t you spend a little money for the old women who tend the dead? Didn’t you have enough respect for me to provide a proper funeral with shroud and priest and mourners?” Anger heated Nimbulan’s cheeks. He allowed his emotions to fuel his cramped muscles and propel him outward.
    With one hand braced on the ledge, he landed safely on his side a few feet below his “final” resting place.
    “Why the haste?” he kept asking himself as he stripped off the winding cloths and discovered he was still wearing his everyday tunic and trews beneath his formal robe—not the newest or cleanest one at that.
    Why?
    (Who?)
    Nimbulan looked around, seeking the source of the voice in the far corners of the crypt. Had he truly heard it or was it an echo of his spirit journey in the void? No answers came to him. He aimed the witchlight toward the shaky ladder carved into the wall that led to the trapdoor entrance.
    (Hasten not from one death into another.)
    This time Nimbulan used the last of his reserves to fill the subterranean crypt with light.
    “Are you a ghost? Perhaps the guardian spirit returned?”
    No answer. Only the echoes of his own whispers and the lingering memory of the warning bounced in his head.
    Hasten not from one death into another, the voice still echoed in his mind.
    Who wanted him dead? Who could have arranged it?
    The aftertaste of Timboor returned to his mouth. Timboor. An overdose of the poison fruit on top of the extra doses of Tambootie he had ingested for his experiments.
    He’d destroyed all of the remaining bits of Timboor after his bad experience with it while Ackerly was in Sambol. None of the apprentices would have had the boldness to contradict his orders and give it to him.
    Keegan had deserted him when Nimbulan thought the boy well-loved and loyal.
    No. Rollett and the others weren’t as cynical, nor as ambitious as Keegan. They trusted him.
    Didn’t they?
    Who? Who had been around that day? He had no way of telling how long ago that was. A few hours perhaps or several days? Possibly a week. He was hungry enough for that amount of time to have passed. A murderer could have slipped the Timboor into the Tambootie dosage and left the island before Nimbulan was pronounced dead.
    Someone with a boat. Two messengers had arrived from Lord Kammeryl d’Astrismos. One had waited, one had left a parchment. The words written on the parchment had bounced and wavered as if written in magic code. He did remember the pattern of the writing had fallen into verse, like a spell. Could the Timboor have been rubbed into the parchment and combined with a spell? He had just come out of a Tambootie trance. His system was sensitive to all forms of the tree at that point. Perhaps his skin had absorbed the poison.
    Or the poison had already been in his system causing his vision to blur.
    He had no way of knowing now. If someone had tried to kill him once, they would try again.
    He needed more information.
    He needed a plan, a place to hide until he knew who had poisoned him and could guard against him.
    Who? Who? Who? The question ricocheted around his skull with no answers.
    A place to hide. Nowhere on the island.
    How to escape from this tomb? He’d lift the trapdoor and find out what time of day awaited him. At night, when all slept unguarded, he’d leave.
    He had to get off the island unobserved.

Chapter 19
     
    N imbulan dragged the little rowboat onto dry land beyond the sucking mudflats of the Great Bay. Winter dormancy made the beach grasses brittle and sparse. A stiff offshore wind smelled of salt and a new storm hovering on the eastern horizon. He needed to find shelter soon.
    The night was clear and icy cold. Starlight and a crescent moon lighted his way. He pulled a thick winter cloak tight across his chest and shouldered a pack of provisions.
    His raid of the pantry and storeroom had been surprisingly easy. Almost as if someone expected him to wake from the dead