The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

attention with a suggestion implanted in their minds.” Myri shrugged and returned to the front of the house with the precious dose of digitalis.
    “I’ll do my best, Your Grace. Do you have any messages for King Kinnsell and the others?”
    “What I have to say to my father, I will say in person. He has a lot to answer for.”
    Luucian bowed to her again and exited, just one more shadow in a sheltered alley.
    Shouting from outside drew Katie back to Quinnault and the mercenaries. Her husband stood with his short sword drawn and a phalanx of uniformed guards around him.

Chapter 46
     
    Late afternoon, Shayla’s lair, deep in the Southern Mountains
     
    P owwell opened his eyes to find an unrecognizable face pressed close to his own. His eyes crossed as he tried to focus. His vision swam, and he lost all definition to the pale blob pierced by two bright blue eyes.
    “Who?” he asked through dry and cracked lips. He couldn’t move anything more than his mouth. His entire body felt as if his joints had been dislocated one by one and put back together wrong.
    “I’m Luucian,” the face said. The eyes twinkled momentarily and then relaxed, almost glazed over as if they were the center of the man’s exhaustion. “Do you remember me, Powwell?”
    “Healer?” Powwell couldn’t manage more than a single word at a time. His mouth tasted as if he’d eaten sand. Where had a healer come from? Especially one with a bright blue healing aura?
    “Yes, I apprenticed to the healers in Nimbulan’s battle enclave about a year before you joined him. We met a few times at the University.”
    “Water.” That seemed more important than the identity of the face. Powwell closed his eyes again; the light around him pierced his vision painfully.
    Someone pressed a cup to his mouth and dribbled a few drops of blessedly sweet water onto his tongue. He gulped it greedily. No trace of sulfur marred the taste, so they couldn’t be in Hanassa. But then, his mouth was so dry even that rancid water would taste sweet.
    “More,” he demanded.
    “Just a few drops at a time, Powwell. You’ve had a very high fever. Your system is still in shock from it,” Luucian replied. “But you’ll recover rapidly once you start moving around again. Nothing like a little extra Tambootie in your system to restore your internal balance.”
    Powwell drank a little bit more this time; enough to roll around his mouth before he swallowed. The muscles in his throat ached and didn’t want to work. He tried again and managed to get the water down.
    “Thorny?”
    “Your familiar is distraught, but still with you.” Someone guided his hand until it rested upon Thorny’s relaxed spines. The little hedgehog didn’t hunch and bristle at his touch. Something must be wrong with him.
    Powwell tried to open his eyes again and sit up. He had to take care of Thorny.
    “Rest, Powwell. Thorny is fine. He’s as worried about you as we are,” Yaala said. Her cool hand touched his cheek.
    He relaxed a little, but kept one hand on Thorny. A sense of well-being thrummed through his system from his point of contact with his familiar.
    “Where?”
    “We are in Shayla’s lair,” Yaala reassured him. “The dragons brought a healer to you from the capital. You are going to be fine.”
    “Hanassa?” he asked on a cough. Yaala pressed the cup to his mouth again. He took a big swallow but rolled it around his mouth, relieving parched tissue while he allowed only a little to trickle down his throat at a time.
    “We escaped,” Rollett said. His voice grew distant and loud as if he paced away and then turned back.
    Powwell risked opening his eyes again. Sure enough, Rollett paced in front of the source of light—a cave opening? Only his silhouette was visible. Was that boulder by the entrance really a baby dragon watching Rollett?
    “And the plague?” Powwell’s mouth and throat eased enough to allow three words instead of one. He wanted more water, but Luucian held the cup back.
    “You gave Kinnsell enough healing and strength to survive. He still needs some rest and recovery, but he’ll live long enough to explain himself to his very irate daughter,” Luucian told him. “I doused Yaala with the Tambootie. We don’t know if her dragon heritage makes her immune or not. Lyman and Rollett seem to be fine.”
    When he finished speaking, he lifted the cup to Powwell’s mouth again. “Not too much at once. You might bolt it.”
    Sure enough, the next