The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

time he’d passed this way.
    They had almost traversed the room when a thunderous roar shook the entire building.
    “That wasn’t a kardiaquake,” Powwell said, bracing himself for the rolling motion he expected but which didn’t come.
    “It’s coming from outside, not beneath us,” Rollett confirmed.
    They joined the crush of people in the major corridor exiting the palace. No one seemed to notice four more bodies among the hundreds. Most of the servants, retainers, and guards carried at least one artifact looted from the Kaaliph.
    Powwell checked Yaala’s reactions to the loss of her inheritance, generations of accumulated wealth. She seemed more concerned with protecting Rollett from the jabbing elbows and careless feet of the fleeing populace. She had never wanted her mother’s treasure, only her love. When Yaassima had exiled Yaala to the pit, she had turned to her beloved machines for companionship. Now they, too, were dead. Perhaps she had finally found in Rollett someone who would respect her and maybe eventually love her.
    The crowd carried Powwell away from Lyman and the others as they neared the main exit. Everyone in the city seemed to be gathering in the open area in front of the palace. They all stopped in their tracks, astounded as a huge mechanical dragon floated down toward the ground. It spat fire from its hind end rather than its mouth and its wings looked far too short and thin to support the weight of the beast in the air. It listed badly to the left while the nose pointed down.
    A mighty roar shook the beast as the fire flared, licking the rooftops of nearby buildings.
    People screamed and pressed away from the beast, giving it room to land.
    Powwell looked frantically for Lyman. Perhaps the elderly librarian could interpret for the beast. He caught sight of the old man’s white hair off to his left. Lyman peered upward, seemingly unafraid of this new dragon.
    “Is this Hanassa’s new form?” Powwell asked, shoving his way over to Lyman’s side.
    “Doubtful.” Lyman shook his head and shielded his eyes from the bright desert sunshine. “I have never seen a dragon so big or awkward as this. And these human eyes have never seen a true dragon so easily. Our gaze should be sliding around the beast, looking everywhere but directly at it. I do not know what this animal is.”
    “That isn’t a dragon, it’s a machine!” Yaala yelped excitedly. She pushed and shoved people out of her path as she made her way to the place where the beast settled into the dust. Rollett limped slowly behind her.
    “Yaala, stand back!” Powwell yelled. He reached her side just as a hole slid open in the dragon’s side.
    Maia, the Rover girl the Commune had held hostage, stepped into the opening. Her face looked pale and bloated with worry and tears—or illness. Dozens of Rover guards reached up to help her down to the ground.
    “Piedro, help me please,” she wailed. “The queen’s father is dead. This beast murdered him.”
    But the smell of the plague clung to her. He and Yaala stood next to her, breathing the same tainted air.

Chapter 40
     
    Midafternoon, city of Hanassa
     
    J oy glowed in Yaala’s chest. The Stargods had answered her prayers. They had given her this wonderful mechanical beast to replace the machines she had sacrificed.
    She dismissed her first happy reaction to the machine’s presence as the Rover woman’s words sank in. King Kinnsell lay dead within the machine’s belly. The queen’s father was a politically powerful man. What repercussions would follow?
    She stopped her headlong rush to dive into the rectangular opening where Maia still stood.
    “Yaala, don’t go near her. She carries the plague!” Powwell screamed at her.
    “Plague?” Fear lanced through Yaala. Powwell had related the dragon dream to her in painstaking detail, including the acrid chemical smell generated by the disease.
    Yaala stepped back. Rollett’s chest stopped her from running away.
    “Can you fly that thing out of here?” Rollett asked.
    He sounded so hopeful, Yaala hated to disappoint him.
    “I’m an engineer. Given a few days of tearing that thing apart, I might be able to tell you how it works, but to fly it is something else entirely.”
    “That woman landed it. She must have if the pilot is dead. If Powwell and I can access her mind . . .”
    Powwell pushed past them and climbed the two steps that folded out of the machine’s portal.
    “Powwell!” Yaala protested. “The