The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

way of controlling how much each of them breathed in. But they needed Tambootie in their systems to combat the plague virus they might have inhaled. Katie didn’t have time to distill proper and controlled doses and then return to the shuttle before Kinnsell departed with it.
    Nimbulan’s face grew paler as Myri’s flushed with heat and distorted perceptions. Quinnault seemingly remained impervious to the hallucinogens in the smoke. He’d endured this before, when progressing from apprentice to journeyman in his priestly studies. Or maybe he simply knew how to flow with changes. Katie stopped fighting the splotches of improbable colors that filled her vision. She allowed the smoke to infiltrate her every pore and corpuscle.
    The world spun around her. She lost contact with her feet. Her arms rose level with her shoulders. She turned her palms up to embrace the sky. She could almost reach out and touch the clouds. Dense air seemed to enclose her in a vortex of color, lifting her higher above the others.
    Visions of soaring above the clouds of Coronnan layered over her real-time sight of this mundane clearing and the ritual campfire. Cool air wafted beneath her arms/wings. Warm thermal currents guided her feet/tail. Sparkling crystal outlined all within sight.
    Upward she soared, higher and higher toward the bright sun and the blackness of space beyond. The miracle of flight enticed her farther and farther away from her companions, and yet she did not fear the loneliness of where she traveled.
    Suddenly absolute darkness enfolded her. All sensation of flight vanished. Sensory input ceased. Her body disappeared. All she had left was her mind and . . . and the dragons.
    A dozen dragon thoughts invaded her mind, whispering secrets of past, present, and future. The meaning of her existence—of all of humanity—seemed just beyond the next confidence.
    She listened carefully, certain she would understand soon. Thoughts of her aborted attempt to contact her brothers, her loyalty to her husband and friends, her duty to keep Coronnan and all of Kardia Hodos free of the taint of technology vanished. She had only her mind and the dragons.
    (What questions do you bring to the void between the planes of existence?) a voice asked her. It seemed to reverberate and compound into a dozen voices, yet it spoke with the authority of one.
    I need—I need to banish all traces of the plague from this world.
    (Then you demand the death of one you hold dear.)
    Memories of Katie’s father arguing before the imperial legislature; Kinnsell ordering the servants; Daddy reprimanding her for some childhood infraction, filled her with a sad bitterness.
    I have not loved my father in a long time.
    (He is your father.)
    His sperm sired me. But he never stayed home long enough to be a father. My mother raised us alone until Kinnsell put her aside for his pregnant mistress. Then my brothers became more father to me than Kinnsell ever was.
    (He is your father.)
    I wanted to love him. He wouldn’t let me. His ambitions and greed got in the way.
    (He is your father.)
    Every contact with him created greater bitterness between us.
    (You cannot love where you do not recognize the truth. He is your father.)
    I cannot love him. He won’t let me.
    (Then you are not ready to recognize the truth.)
    With a stomach-wrenching jolt, Katie returned to her body. She swayed on her feet. Gravity weighed too heavily on her limbs after the freedom of flight to the void.
    “I have got to sit,” she mumbled as her bottom found the ground. Almost sick to her stomach, she dropped her head between her knees, breathing shallowly to keep any more Tambootie smoke from penetrating her lungs.
    “Katie!” Quinnault knelt beside her, seemingly unaffected by the smoke. He hugged her close, offering her an anchor to reality.
    “What did you see in the smoke?” he asked after a moment of silence.
    “Dragons.”
    “Dragons!” Myrilandel and Nimbulan exclaimed together.
    “What have we done to her?” Myrilandel turned stricken eyes on her husband.
    “Perhaps we have made a magician of her,” Nimbulan said softly, almost below hearing. He didn’t move any closer.
    “This is what Scarface fears in lighting bonfires of the Tambootie in plague-affected villages,” Quinnault added. “The smoke will enhance minor talents, make untrained magicians of minor talents who cannot be controlled.”
    “We must never mention this again,” Katie said fiercely. “Women can only