The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

Had he sensed Marcus’ earlier anger and jealousy, his need to lash out at his best friend because he was a handy target?
    “What’s in the other corner room?” Marcus nearly ran the length of the colonnade where he kicked the door open, letting it slam against the stone wall behind it. The bang did nothing to alleviate his frustration.
    “The kitchen with storage behind and refectory above.” Vareena looked inside. Her posture told him nothing of her thoughts.
    He considered probing her mind, letting her memories give him as much information as she possessed—even the deeply buried bits about her mother. Something repelled him. He wasn’t even sure his magic would work on her since she seemed partially in the void. The summons spell he’d tried last night had lain dormant within the fire, never passing through his glass. He’d tried three times since coming here to no avail. Maybe all of his magic had died the moment they passed through these walls. He certainly had not had any luck trying to tap the erratic ley lines that passed through the courtyard. They never seemed to rest in the same place two heartbeats in a row.
    And the constant haze in the sky distorted his planetary orientation. He had slept only two nights in this place. Well he hadn’t really slept all that much what with the nightmares and all.
    His latest nightmare involved losing at endless games of cartes, until he finally bet with University money entrusted to him by Jaylor. In a desperate play to salvage his losses he’d bet everything, including Margit.
    And lost.
    He shuddered and tried to think the problem through—as Jaylor and Baamin before him had taught him.
    His connection to the wheel of the stars, the spin of the planet, and the shift of the season told him more time had passed than the two nights he thought he’d spent in the monastery. Much more time. On top of that, his sense of where they were in relation to the nearest magnetic pole shifted every few hours.
    Perhaps the way the ley lines broke just before meeting the exterior walls had something to do with his reactions. He got a headache every time he tried to puzzle it through. He just wanted out. Now.
    He breathed deeply, trying to master his emotions. The failed summons spell had left him frightened and afraid to try again lest he fail and know for certain that all his magic was lost along with his luck.
    “Look, Marcus,” Robb said in hushed tones. “Look at this!”
    Marcus turned his attention away from his fears and looked where Robb had stopped at the center of the central wing of the monastery. He stomped over to his friend and peered inside.
    Large and larger. Like the University, this three-story room took up one entire wing of the building, dominating the lesser rooms.
    “A library,” Robb whispered.
    “An empty library.” The last of Marcus’ optimism slid out of him, into the cold paving stones. “No books, no journals. Not even a cobweb. The rest of this building is filled with spiders and cobwebs, but not here. Only dust and empty shelves.”
    “Not entirely empty. This bank of shelves in the center is filled with sacks of gold,” Robb dribbled a handful of coins out of a rotting canvas sack. He moved around to the back of the shelving unit and reappeared with another sack. “As many back here as in front.”
    Marcus paced around the massive unit. It could easily hold one hundred or more books on each side. The entire thing was filled with sacks of gold coins and several bullion bars.
    “What sunlight penetrates through the gloaming and then through the windows seems to concentrate in this spot.” Robb circled the unit in the opposite direction. With each pass the two of them made, the gold seemed to glow more brightly.
    “Maybe whoever put the gold here wanted to spend his hours staring at it,” Marcus mused.
    “Kind of a boring existence,” Robb added.
    “Who would collect all this gold and just leave it?” Marcus reached out to touch the shiny metal. The coin warmed under his touch. Light reflected off it in warm shades. It almost begged him to pocket it along with the few coins he’d taken from Farrell’s corpse.
    His heartbeat and breathing slowed. He focused only on the gold. Time seemed to stop . . .
    Some moments later he shook himself free of the enthrallment. “Gold doesn’t do anyone any good just sitting here in isolation. We need to get it back to Jaylor and the Commune.” Hope blossomed again in Marcus’ chest.