The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

the shaking of his hands. The last time he’d gone into the crypt had been to place the master’s limp body into a niche. The darkness and the weight of the Kardia above him had pressed on his lungs until he couldn’t breathe. The apprentices and Master Ackerly had formed a semicircle in front of the burial place to say the funeral prayers. Powwell hadn’t closed his eyes. He’d been too afraid that the act of diverting his sight from the walls and ceiling would cause them to collapse. As he scanned the other niches, most occupied by decaying skeletons, he’d seen the ghosts of all the other occupants of the crypt rise up to greet Nimbulan and invite him to join them in haunting the ancient monastery.
    Powwell hadn’t slept well the entire winter, waiting for the ghosts to come for him, too.
    Kalen bent to lift the trapdoor hidden behind the altar in the chapel. “You need proof, or you won’t run away with me.” She grunted under the weight of the door.
    Ingrained manners made Powwell rush to help her. “What made you go crawling around down there in the first place?” he asked as she made ready to climb down the ladder carved into the stone wall. He admired her bravery, but he was coming to dread her stubbornness.
    She wasn’t aggressive and talkative with the others. For them she put on a mask of starry-eyed innocence and awe, lisping sweetly like a child much younger than her ten years. Maybe he was the only person in all of Coronnan she trusted. His chest swelled with pride and protectiveness. He had to follow her into the crypt to prove to himself he’d earned that trust.
    Maybe if he left the door open, the Kardia wouldn’t weigh so heavily on him. Still he hesitated descending after her until she sent three balls of witchlight circling her head like a crown of glowing fire.
    The directionless light illuminated the small crypt better than a hundred torches. It revealed a small square room lined with shelves, much like a library—only the information stored in those shelves was beyond interpretation. Powwell wondered briefly if learning to read the memories of the dead was like learning a new language. He already knew three. His name meant bright in the oldest tongue known to Coronnan. Perhaps he had the intelligence and intuition to decipher the memories of the men who had lived in the monastery long ago.
    He shook his head to rid it of the fanciful thoughts. Snap out of it, he admonished himself. I’m just giddy from the closeness of the walls and the low ceiling.
    Kalen beckoned him to follow her into the far corner. The corner where he and the other apprentices had laid Nimbulan’s still-warm body so many moons ago.
    The body had remained warm though eight hours had passed between the time of Nimbulan’s death and his funeral. Why the haste? Eight hours. Not enough time for decent mourning before putting a beloved friend and teacher to rest. Were Rollett and the other apprentices so grief-stricken they didn’t question the premature funeral? Perhaps they were all so used to obeying the orders of a master without question they had obeyed blindly—too blindly.
    The wrongness of the situation sent his balance awry. He stumbled over a crack in the paving stones. Ackerly had directed the funeral. What did he have to hide?
    Suddenly, Powwell believed Kalen’s story from the depth of his heart. Though seeming not to breathe, or have a heartbeat, Nimbulan hadn’t been dead, but so deep in a trance ordinary means could not revive him.
    Given time, the master magician could have awakened into darkness, hungry, depleted of magic and strength. The winding cloths soaked in preservatives would have bound him so tightly he might not have been able to break free. What terrors had he known? What ghosts haunted him?
    Powwell searched the far corners of the crypt for evidence of the spirits of the dead. They had all fled from Kalen’s witchlight. Nimbulan might not have had the energy to summon light. Had he gone insane from the haunting?
    He looked where Kalen pointed, hoping he wouldn’t see what he knew must be. Nimbulan’s body, huddled in agonizing terror as he died a second time, alone and friendless in a crypt as a dark as the void.
    Powwell swallowed deeply and forced his eyes open.
    The second niche above the floor, last row on the southern side, was empty.
     
    “Which way?” Myri asked the voices as she cuddled Amaranth in her arms. He hadn’t flown since his injury and she had no idea