The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

along the path of the moon. Each left hand held a candle. Every right hand circled in a complicated gesture, fingers weaving. He followed them, imitating every movement.
    Televarn wove in and out among them, odd man out and the binding force of the whole.
    Erda, who had strummed the lute, uttered the first phrase of a chant in an ancient language Nimbulan didn’t understand: the ancient pictorial language represented in the embroidery they all wore. The next person to her right repeated the phrase, then the next, and the next around the circle. By the time the words had reached Nimbulan, they had become a one-note song, sung to the peculiar rhythm of stamping feet and twisting hands.
    A web of energy, sparkling white, like snow crystals, followed Televarn’s progress through the clan. In and out, around and around.
    A thrumming sound rose through Nimbulan’s feet, into his body and out his hands along the growing intricacy of the magic. The pulsing energy shifted to match the vibrations of the Kardia beneath him. He looked up to the clear sky and the cold white stars beyond. The web extended up and through their patterns as if the ley lines of Kardia Hodos wound their way through the universe and he was at their center. All of it hummed and danced in tune.
    He was caught up in the wonder of the music of life, all connected, all in tune, all one.
    The magic spread inward, as well as outward, engulfing the lodge. A dome of shimmering white enveloped the clan and their home. The lodge became a piece of the magnificent web, so much in tune with the clan and the magic that it ceased to stand out as a man-made structure in the midst of the wild creation of the Stargods.
    The energy dome magnified before his vision. He saw each filament of magic, woven into the intricate protection. The web began and ended with Televarn’s heart, stretching out to each person in the clan, binding them all together. Nimbulan saw the common element in their blood that allowed them to work this wonderful magic. A tiny amount of it showed clearly in his own life force.
    Suddenly knowledge of the great-great, multi-great grandmother who took a Rover as a lover awoke in him. Unhappy in her marriage, she cherished her fifth child sired by her lover rather than her husband. Four children stood between the child and inheritance. She had been certain the exotic heritage of the boy would never taint the lords of Baathalzan’s pure line of descent from the Stargods. Fate had eliminated all other heirs, war and disease taking them one after another. The Rover’s secret child had inherited and survived to sire more children. Much diluted, the Kardiagenea, the ability to tap the magic of all life in concert with others of his kind, had come down to Nimbulan.
    A wobble in the web of magic filaments revealed imperfections in the inborn talents of many of these people. The ones with the purest Rover blood, the ones who showed signs of diminished intelligence and bone deformations due to inbreeding, had weak and warped talents.
    The clan needed the strength of outside blood to strengthen the magical talent inbreeding destroyed.
    Nimbulan reached out and traced a filament of this web of life extending from his own body to that of Maia. No weakness showed in her.
    His mind melded with hers. He saw through her eyes, sensed the powerful unity of the spell, felt the cold ground beneath her bare feet, knew the longing in her body for the joy of sex tinged with the need to conceive another child now that her first baby was weaned. Her feminine longing, bordering on an ache, returned to him, enhancing his own desire. He explored the sensations with wonder.
    Tentatively, he reached beyond Maia to Televarn’s uncle and knew the satisfaction of completing the protective ritual properly with exact numbers of male and female. Nimbulan’s presence in the clan was welcome if for no other reason.
    On and on around the circle, Nimbulan touched briefly each member of the clan. Their personalities opened to him as they never had before. And he knew they would never again be able to creep up behind him in surprise.
    Finally he touched the last person in the circle and centered his consciousness on Televarn. The man’s thoughts did not open. Nimbulan could not share the sensations of the Rover king’s body. Yet he sensed Televarn was totally connected to every person in the circle by a one-way path of communication. Televarn dominated every personality in the clan.
    The