The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

else. We should be in the tunnel overlooking the lava core.”
    “Well, we found an active volcano. But that’s the only resemblance to Hanassa—which blew its top and collapsed into a caldera aeons ago.”
    “Oh, Kalen, I’ve failed to find you once again.” Powwell beat his fist and his forehead into the hot sand. “How much longer can she hold out in the pit, or the void, or wherever she’s hiding?”
    “How long can we last here, with only a few journey rations?” Yaala shifted uncomfortably. Ash hazed the sun like a thick fog, but didn’t deflect much heat. Nor did it provide any moisture. Her exposed hands and face dried and withered under the burning sun. She wondered if the sand was hot enough to burn through her trews and boots.
    “At least we know the gate didn’t disappear altogether after the kardiaquake.” Yaala touched Powwell’s smooth back with tentative fingers.
    They had survived a lot together in the last year and a half. He’d been as much a victim of her mother’s cruelty as Yaala had in the slave pit below Hanassa.
    Thorny poked his nose out of Powwell’s tunic pocket. Powwell caressed the hedgehog’s relaxed spines and murmured comforting words to the creature.
    Yaala knew a moment of painful loneliness. She would never have a familiar. No magic coursed within her veins, no matter how many generations of dragons limbed her family tree. She had no family left. The machines in the volcanic pit beneath the city of Hanassa had been more friendly, predictable, and faithful than her mother. She’d rather study the fascinating intricacies of her machines and the ’tricity they generated than trust a pet for companionship.
    Powwell loved the funny little hedgehog so much he kept Thorny’s discarded spines. Even on this long journey, Powwell kept the dried spines wrapped in a silk wallet inside his belt pouch.
    She shook her head to clear it of the puzzle of magicians and their familiars. She had to think clearly and hopefully.
    “Don’t give up yet, Powwell. The dragongate may open again in a few moments. We don’t know what kind of damage occurred in that kardiaquake just before we left Hanassa.”
    “What if the dragongate takes weeks to open again at this location? I was sure my calculations were correct. I found the portal. It should open to the pit in Hanassa and nowhere else. So where are we?”
    Yaala scanned the land once more. Something about the way the sandy plateau dropped off into a steep cliff, and the narrow valley behind her seemed familiar, but distorted. They sat atop a small mountain. The black lake rippled and shivered. A moment later the land beneath them shifted and quaked. The lake waters rose a few inches and spread. Steam spouted up from the depths. Something . . .
    “Maybe we are in Hanassa. But Hanassa of long, long ago, when the volcano was first forming. That lake might lie atop the core of lava at the heart of the mountain.”
    “But Shayla said that the dragongate only distorts distance, not time. She should know. She’s a dragon.” Thorny poked his nose out of Powwell’s pocket and wiggled it in agreement.
    “Dragons don’t know everything.” Yaala glared at Powwell. “And they don’t always tell the truth.” Her mother hadn’t known how to separate truth from her own desires. Her ancestor, Hanassa, had begun the bloody tradition of reign by terror in the city.
    “Dragons know a lot more than they tell.”
    “Dragons and magicians aren’t equal to my machines.” Machines couldn’t be as evil as Shayla and Queen Maarie Kaathliin pretended in the infamous dragon dream. Resentment of Powwell for ramming two magicians’ staffs into the guts of her beloved generator as a diversion for their escape from Hanassa rose sharply within her. She thought she’d forgiven him, understood the necessity of his actions. But now . . . now she wanted to strangle him. Then love him back to life.
    What did she truly feel? It didn’t matter. She couldn’t trust emotions. Especially her own. Machines didn’t have emotions.
    “Well, I broke the machines with mundane tricks. I didn’t even need magic,” Powwell replied, sifting the hot sand through his fingers. “And I’m glad I broke them. Machines create pollution that feeds the plague spores. And when they run out of pollution, they turn on people and start eating them from the inside out.”
    “That’s a myth created by the queen to keep technology out of Coronnan. Technology that would