The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

effectively.
    Confronting the ghost seemed the only way to end this half-existence.
    “Promise me, Robb and Marcus, promise me, that when you find a way to break the spell that holds you here, you will take me with you.” Vareena seemed to be looking far beyond the restrictions of the monastery walls.
    Both magicians nodded mutely.
    “Have you noticed that the big spiders crawl everywhere but inside the library,” Marcus added as a challenge to his partner.
    Robb’s head came up abruptly. He stared at Marcus a moment, then grinned with half his mouth. He knew something.
    “Poking around the library has to be better than sitting out here doing nothing.” Robb heaved himself to his feet.
    Marcus followed suit, curious as to what Robb hid.
    “Have you figured out how to avoid the true ghost?” Vareena asked.
    “We need information,” Marcus stated firmly. How many times had Jaylor, and before him Baamin, pounded that idea into his thick head? Information was the key to power. Information was the key to problem solving. Depending upon luck only worked when backed by information to point him in the right direction. He squared his shoulders, swallowed his instinctive fear of the ghost and marched in Robb’s wake. He knew something, too.
    Vareena shuffled along behind him, still shredding the petals from a daisy. She hummed a tune with a catchy repetitive rhythm under her breath. He’d heard that song before. It played itself over and over in his mind without end, like an obsession. Even the bees in the herb garden around the well seemed to buzz in time with it.
    “You know what I miss most in this place?” Marcus remarked.
    Robb kept walking. Vareena caught up with him and rewarded him with a smile. The haze seemed suddenly thinner, and the bees hummed louder.
    “I miss music. We have no instruments. We don’t sing or dance to pass the too many idle hours. Even the birds are silent here.” He continued staring at Vareena, hoping to lock her gaze with his own. If only he could look deeply into her eyes, he could convey all of his feelings.
    “I thought I heard music on the wind, last night,” Vareena said. “I thought it was the villagers.”
    “The wind was from the wrong quarter,” Robb announced as he grasped the latch on the library doors. “This place plays tricks on your mind and distorts truths.” He paused a moment for a breath and then thrust both sides of the double portal open.
    “Hey, you, Ghost of this library. I’m not afraid of you. What are you going to do about it!” he called into the echoing emptiness.
    “Who are you, Ghost? Does the name Ackerly mean anything to you?” Marcus grinned at Robb’s look of surprise.
    “Where’d you come up with that name?”
    Marcus shrugged. “I probed a wall last night.”
    “Do you know who Ackerly was?” Rob’s eyes remained wide and fixed on Marcus rather than on the gathering of mist under the gallery.
    “I read it somewhere in a history book.”
    “You read it in Nimbulan’s journals. The founder of the Commune of Magicians had an assistant named Ackerly who betrayed him. They fought with magic, and Ackerly died. No magician since has been named Ackerly.”
    “Ah, that explains some things.” Marcus started backing out of the library as if afraid. He needed Robb to find the next clue. He needed his friend to succeed.
    “First time I’ve ever known you to be the timid one, Marcus.”
    “That was before my luck ran out.”
    “Then make your own luck.” Robb marched into the library and stood in the precise center of the room, legs spread sturdily, hands on hips, head thrown back in defiance.
    The gold lay temptingly to his right and left.
    “Stargods, Robb, you don’t even have your armor up.” Quickly, Marcus brought forward his own magical shields and extended them to his friend.
    No sooner had his protection snapped into place than the misty form drifted forward. It glowed with a dark yellow, almost goldenrod color, around the edges. The dripping sacrificial knife pulsed with preternatural colors, seemingly growing sharper and hungrier by the moment.
    Marcus gulped but stood his ground. Robb still stubbornly refused to armor himself.
    “Come and get us, Ghost of Ackerly the traitor,” Robb taunted. “Kill us so you won’t be alone. Kill us and you will share this monastery and all its secrets with us as we become true ghosts as well.”
    The ghost reared back, stopping three arm’s lengths from the two