The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

heavy fist and violent temper.
    Anger replaced Bessel’s grief. Anger that these youngsters had to stand and watch M’ma die. They had said their good-byes to her during her last moments of consciousness. Why did they have to bow to tradition and watch blood trickle from M’ma’s mouth and ears while knowing they could do nothing to help? Why couldn’t Maydon release them to grieve in quiet privacy until it was all over?
    M’ma started coughing again, weakly. Baarben rushed to help her sister-in-law sit up. The children made space for her in the circle. None of them knew how to ease the insistent blockage in their mother’s lungs. No one in this mining village learned anything more than their assigned place in life allowed. Maiden aunts were expected to nurse the family’s ills. Aunt Baarben was the one who must help M’ma sit up, not the children who stood closer.
    But it was late for anyone to help M’ma. She opened her mouth for one last inhalation. Blood streamed from her mouth. She opened her eyes wide, seeing nothing. Then she collapsed. Her life’s spirit exited her body.
    “Bring her back. You’ve got to make her live again!” Maydon pounded on Bessel’s shoulder. “You’re a magician, bring her back to life.”
    All of Bessel’s siblings looked at him, hope brimming in their eyes along with their tears.
    “I can’t.” Bessel bowed his head. “Even if I could, the Stargods forbid reanimating a dead body for any reason.”
    “I’ll get Lord Balthazaan’s magicians to compel you to do it. Make your mother live again!” Maydon grabbed Bessel’s shoulders and shook him hard, letting his crutches fall to the floor. For a moment, he was entirely dependent upon his estranged son.
    Bessel didn’t let his small smile of triumph touch his face. Because of the trauma of his experiences in the outlaw camp, no magician had since been able to compel him to do anything he didn’t want to do.
    “No such spell of reanimation exits. Your ignorance assigns me more power and fewer ethics than any true magician could hope for.” Gently, Bessel removed his father’s hands from his shoulders, then restored the man’s crutches. “If I could have helped her, I would have done it hours ago while she still lived.” But he might have helped her, if he’d had the courage to tap a ley line and access the void.
    The healer would have come from Lord Balthazaan’s castle if Bessel had asked. He’d have come to help another magician. But Bessel wasn’t a true magician yet. He hadn’t achieved master status.
    He was still an outsider looking in. Never more than in this large family that shared his blood but not his talent or his experiences.
    “Can’t or won’t?” Maydon sneered at Bessel. “You can hurt me any way you like, I’m the one who threw you and your cursed talent to the wolves. Kill me if you must, but don’t hurt your mother. Bring her back!”
    “I can’t. No matter what you think, I am not all-powerful. Nor will I break sacred laws.”
    Bessel walked out of his father’s house, not once looking back. Bitterness and regret were his only companions.
    S’murghit! The Stargods had taught the first magicians how to cure a plague. Where was that knowledge when he needed it?
    Certainly no one in the village knew the first thing about true healing. Midwives and maiden aunts knew how to use a few herbs and poultices. They could bandage wounds and set broken limbs. None of them knew how to read to learn more. Maydon had taught his children a little ciphering, enough to keep household accounts. Nothing more. Tradition said they needed no more. None of them had ever expressed a dream of achieving anything more than their father had or than Lord Balthazaan expected of them.
    And now a plague beset them, and their ignorance was killing them.
    The strange scent he had detected in his father’s house assailed him again. Stronger, deeper. The village was filled with it along with the black coal dust from the deep mine. Was the dust a kind of pollution for the plague to feed upon?
    He stopped in the center of the pathway between houses and turned a full circle. His magic talent bristled a warning deep inside him.
    Death stalked this community, just as it had stalked the strangers in the dragon dream Shayla had given Powwell, Master Nimbulan, and the king and queen. Everyone in the Commune had heard of the dream in the minutest detail. Powwell had been most specific about the scent of the plague,