The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

dragon!” Maia screamed in his ear.
    Kinnsell roused slightly, shaking his head to clear it. Chills racked his body suddenly. His eyes blurred again.
    “Autopilot. Set autopilot,” he said. To his own ears each forced word took on new shades of meaning. Had he really told Maia to set the autopilot or had he named the colors of dragon wingtips? No, he had named each of his four children by wife number one and their three half siblings by numbers two and three. Number four, Marjorie, didn’t like children.
    Seesaw Marjorie Daw.
    “Master Kinnsell!” Maia screeched again. “You must control the dragon, we are going to crash!”

Chapter 31
     
    Noon, the pit beneath the city of Hanassa
     
    R ollett watched Powwell walk resolutely toward the cavern he said housed the dragongate. Depression weighed heavily on the boy’s shoulders. His skin looked waxy and pale in the unnatural light.
    That strange misty aura still clung to Powwell’s silhouette. Suddenly Rollett knew that Kalen had become the wraith while Hanassa inhabited her body. Now she kept close to her brother, demanding his help.
    “Can we force Hanassa to relinquish Kalen’s body?” Rollett asked, determined to push the boy into action. He couldn’t allow one setback to force him to give up. If he’d done that, he’d have committed suicide a year and a half ago. But now he was out of resources. The city was out of time. They had to act.
    Powwell shrugged, studying the bloody stains on his fingers. The dried blood looked black against his increasingly pale skin. He kept his back to Yaala and Rollett. But he tilted his head much as Myrilandel did when she listened to dragons. Did the wraith whisper to Powwell?
    “We haven’t time for arguing over spells and joined spirits,” Yaala reminded them as she peered back along their escape routes. “The food in the living cavern will slow the guards down a little, but if Hanassa rules the consort’s—Kalen’s—body, then she’ll drive the Rovers deeper and deeper until they find us. Hanassa knows these passageways better than I do.”
    “Does Hanassa know the dragongate?” Powwell whirled to confront them. Hope animated his eyes and his posture.
    “He/she must if she’s been down here for centuries,” Rollett said.
    “But does Hanassa understand the dragongate?” A wide grin split Powwell’s face—a grin that spoke more of malice than of mirth.
    “Can anyone understand it?” Yaala returned. “It changed and doesn’t work like it used to. Who knows when it will open again, or change again?” She fell into step beside Powwell as they headed into the large cavern with the broken generator named Old Bertha.
    Rollett followed the others, needing to stay with them lest he become lost and fall victim to the Rovers who searched for them. Escape was within his grasp only if he stayed with Yaala and Powwell.
    Hope. He felt it in his bones.
    Freedom. He tasted it in the air.
    A haunting song almost within hearing drew him into the cavern more than the presence of his comrades.
    Powwell stood in the opening of a small tunnel off the huge cavern. He braced his arms against the sides of the archway, staring into the blackness beyond. A bright flare of red from deep within the tunnel as well as the increased heat told Rollett that they neared the lava core—and the elusive dragongate. The song intensified. If only he could remember it, all of his questions would be answered.
    “That’s not the way to the dragongate,” Yaala called to Powwell. She remained next to the vast hulk of the dead generator, touching it, as a mother caressed a wayward toddler.
    Rollett gulped back a sudden surge of desire. The image of Yaala touching a child—his child—filled his imagination with longing.
    No. She wanted to stay in Hanassa and rule it. He needed to go home. But he’d come back for his men, make sure they had the option of escape.
    Yaala rested her head on the dead hulk of the machine. He wanted to reach out to her, let her grieve for the loss of the machine. Jerking himself back three steps from her, he forced his hands to his sides. He didn’t know Yaala, didn’t dare trust her with his fragile emotions. He hadn’t known a woman’s companionship during this entire long year and a half in Hanassa. The only women available were either hardened outlaws or disease-ridden prostitutes. He wouldn’t touch either, no matter how much he longed to. Now Yaala enticed him, probably because she was clean,