The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

Jack, none of them magicians. A magician would change his name to something more lofty to command respect,” Marcus replied. “Jack doesn’t seem like a Rover name either.”
    “Perhaps you knew me under another name, before I learned of my heritage. Before I earned Master status in the Commune,” Jack said.
    Marcus searched his memory for any apprentice or journeyman with Rover heritage.
    “Um . . . Yaakke had very dark hair and eyes,” Robb reminded him.
    “Yaakke? The lost journeyman?”
    “One and the same. And this is my betrothed, Katrina of SeLenicca.”
    “You escaped SeLenicca?” Lanciar pushed his way toward them—of all the Rover party, he alone remained fully human. “Thank the Stargods you survived.”
    Vareena followed Lanciar, shaking her head.
    Marcus moved to Vareena’s side. “It will be all right. We’ll get this fixed soon,” he whispered to his love.
    She had eyes only for Robb.
    “Aye, Lanciar, no thanks to you, I survived,” Jack said, ignoring the others. His voice and face remained calm, almost devoid of emotion. But his eyes took on a haunted look. “I survived. With Katrina’s help, I escaped Rejiia’s foul prison, and the kardiaquakes and the destruction of Queen’s City. The last I saw of you, you were meekly obeying her orders and boasting of your membership in the coven.” Both men’s auras flared with wild and violent emotions.
    “But did you find the dragons?” Marcus moved to stand between the men before they engaged in a physical, or worse, a magical duel. The barrier of energy around him repulsed them in opposite directions.
    Vareena tugged on Katrina’s hand, urging her toward the gate. But Katrina held firmly to Jack, or Yaakke, or whoever he was now. Older, more mature and sure of himself with only a trace of the cockiness of his youth.
    “Yes, I found the dragons and returned them to the lair, again with Katrina’s help.”
    “Then magic is legal again in Coronnan?” Marcus asked. His dream of a home and family at the University shifted slightly from a cottage in the woods to a suite of rooms in the massive stone building in the capital.
    “Not exactly,” Jack and Zolltarn replied at the same time.
    “Marcus!” a new voice announced herself from the gateway. Margit raced across the crowded courtyard, bouncing off of one ghostly Rover after another, heedless of the angry voices and offended travelers. “So this is where you’ve been hiding. This is where you came just to get away from me!” She raised her fist and slammed it into his jaw.
    The anger behind her blow pushed her through the energy barrier and knocked Marcus flat on his bum.

    Iron! They fight me with iron. I have no defense against that base metal. So cold. And yet it burns. Not like my gold that warms to the touch and invites me to caress it. The young whelps must have watched when I could not follow our keeper up the iron staircase.
    The iron cannot push me into my next existence. I want no other than what I have. I have the gold and that is all I need. I do not even need my children—proud of them as I am—as long as I have the gold. But iron will give me terrible pain that will not go away. Ever.
    I must make them flee. None of the others who have visited me have given me so much trouble. The others were company of sorts. I was content to let them fondle a piece or two of gold. They could not leave with it. And so I retrieved it upon their deaths. Quiet deaths mostly, with a peaceful passage into their next existence. They can only last one hundred days or less living under my curse. And I still had the gold.
    But these magicians tax me greatly. They have the gift to undo three hundred years of protecting my gold. I shall whisper the secret into their dreams. ’Tis their greed that keeps them here. Tonight, I shall whisper into their dreams. All of them. By morning they will either flee or kill each other. One way or another, I shall be free of them all.

    Ariiell eyed the side trail with suspicion. Why would Rejiia send her up there? This must be the wrong road.
    But they’d passed no others. She had watched diligently for signs of the place Rejiia needed her to go. With just a touch of TrueSight she discerned the signs of many steeds passing this way recently. Steeds and sledges.
    No respectable trading caravan would travel up this narrow and nearly overgrown path. They would seek the village up ahead.
    She sniffed the trail with her mundane nose, made more sensitive