The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

window seat. And yet she clung to the light filtering through the oiled parchment pane.
    Powwell vowed to take her home again. As soon as he found Kalen. Yaala deserved the best. More than he could give her.
    “You don’t have the magic to drag me out of the void, Yaala,” Powwell replied. He clasped her hand in reassurance. “I’ll be all right. I’ve researched this extensively.”
    “Shouldn’t we wait for Master Nimbulan to return from temple?” Bessel fiddled with one of the master’s pens. “He’d be able to monitor you. He knows what you are up against.”
    “But he has no magic either.”
    “What if Scarface finds out what we’re doing? This spell requires rogue magic. The whole thing is illegal.” Bessel began tapping the pen against Nimbulan’s desk.
    “That’s why we’re doing it in Myrilandel’s house. She’s the ambassador for the dragons. This house, the embassy, is foreign territory. We aren’t in Coronnan, so the spell isn’t illegal here.”
    Neither Bessel nor Yaala looked reassured by the argument.
    “I need you, Bessel. And I’m running out of time. I’ve wasted moons and moons trying to figure out where to look for Kalen without going into the void. I’ve tried to abide by the rules of the Commune. Now Scarface has dismissed me from the Commune. He’s cut off my access to the library, to the entire University. I’m a magician outside the Commune; therefore I have to either apologize to him or leave Coronnan by midnight. I have to search the void here and now. Either you help me, Bessel, or I do it alone with only Thorny to guide me.” He petted the little hedgehog within his tunic pocket.
    “Start your trance, Powwell. Best we get this over with before I lose my courage.”
    Powwell sat cross-legged on the floor, placing Thorny on his right thigh, within easy reach. In an emergency, his familiar could bristle his spines, jabbing Powwell back into his body and this reality. He took a deep breath on three counts, clearing his mind of the room, his companions, every stray thought except his purpose. He let go of the dragon magic he kept stored in his body and found a silvery blue ley line deep within the planet to feed him magical energy. Calm spread through him like warm honey. He took a second breath on the same three counts, holding it three counts, and then releasing it on three counts. The absolute blackness of the void flickered around his peripheral vision. He resisted the urge to plunge into the emptiness between the planes of existence. A third breath took him deeper into his trance. Yaala and Bessel became illusory ghosts to his perceptions. Nothing existed in this reality except Thorny who remained a solid and familiar presence.
    The void beckoned him with the soft music of the stars. He almost recognized the melody, needed to hear more to fit the alluring pieces together.
    I’ll tether you to this existence with the umbilical of your life force while you search, Bessel said directly into his thoughts.
    Powwell merged with the blank nothingness of the void. All sense of his body, of direction, of his planetary orientation evaporated. Nothing existed but his mind.
    He fought a momentary panic that he might become lost, never find his way back or forward into his next existence. Then Thorny’s emotional touch reassured him.
    On the heels of the panic came awareness of dozens of bright umbilical cords representing the life forces of all the lives he had encountered. He picked out Nimbulan’s blue easily. Though the life force had faded since the last time Powwell had viewed it with his master, the blue still dominated Powwell’s life. Myrilandel’s crystal and silver wrapped around Nimbulan’s blue, essentially binding them together into one being.
    Bessel’s braid of bright blue and red trailed away from his perceptions, a ladder to climb back into his body if he needed help.
    He searched for Kalen, expecting her life force to entwine with his own. An undefined silver cord tinged with lavender wrapped around Powwell with no trace of his sister’s orange and brown. Yaala? He looked more closely at the dull silver of his own life, seeking a hint of color. Magicians rarely saw their personal signature colors.
    A brighter crystal life danced around Powwell’s own life force, just out of reach. Only Shayla, the nearly invisible female dragon could be such a pure crystal. She influenced all the lives in Coronnan without becoming a part of any.
    Powwell