The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

cardinal directions.
    Vareena repeated his chant four times facing each of the four walls.
    Margit followed suit. As did Jack.
    “That sounds like a coven ritual,” Robb whispered.
    “Who cares, as long as it accomplishes something positive,” Marcus replied.
    LIES! Ackerly’s voice boomed through Marcus’ mind.
    He clamped his hands over his ears in a futile effort to block out the reverberations and the need to crawl out of the monastery in abject defeat.
    “It’s just the ghost. There is nothing to fear. We can handle him,” Marcus muttered to himself over and over.
    “Lies! You wish to steal my gold. All lies. Everything is lies.” Ackerly flew around the room so rapidly Marcus couldn’t separate the trail of dust from his ethereal robes from the cloud of dust around his hair. His voice had become audible to mundane senses. His emotions must be roiling and totally beyond control.
    Lanciar kept the ghost from fleeing to the courtyard with wild slashes of his iron sword at the doorway.
    “Your life and your death have all been lies,” Marcus announced. He noted that Ackerly stayed away from Zolltarn, Lanciar, Margit, and Vareena. The haze seemed to thicken around them, a misty veil deeper than the half existence Ackerly had created for himself and his gold.
    “What good is the gold, Ackerly? What good did you accomplish by hoarding it all these centuries?” Marcus had to keep the ghost occupied until Zolltarn finished his conjure.
    Gold is power. I have power as long as I have the gold.
    “You have nothing. Power exists only when it involves other people. Hidden away here you have power over nothing. Not even yourself.”
    I have the gold.
    “Hoarding the gold makes you a failure. You won’t use it to buy land or trade with foreign countries. You can’t buy influence in politics. You can’t help the poor. You are a failure, Ackerly. A failure in your life and in your death. You can’t even get to your next existence properly. And your greed kept your son and daughter from seeking their next existence. You denied them their due. You FAILED!” Marcus taunted the ghost.
    You know nothing. Without the gold I am nothing. Ackerly’s wails became shriller, more desperate.
    “With the gold, you are less than nothing,” a new voice said softly.
    Everyone in the room turned to look at the figure that stood at the top of the spiral iron stair. More fully formed than Ackerly, the light still shone through the man. His curly dark hair stood out around his head in a kind of halo. Old-fashioned blue robes, similar to what master magicians still wore for formal occasions, fluttered as if in a breeze. He anchored his staff against the first stair.
    Vareena took a step closer, staring at the man’s tired gray eyes. Compassion, as well as inner pain, radiated from those eyes. Those eyes had seen more pain and destruction than a man three times his age. Marcus doubted he’d seen more than thirty summers. And yet he seemed ageless, timeless. He held his twisted staff in his right hand, a miniature hedgehog in his left. A familiar that had followed him into death.
    The hedgehog bristled and wiggled in response to Powwell’s emotions.
    A curious shadow stood behind his left shoulder, a darker, shorter, duplicate of himself.
    Not too different from Jack’s double aura, or the one that Queen Rossemikka possessed.
    What strange entity haunted him?
    “We could not have conjured your son if his soul resided anywhere but drifting aimlessly in the void,” Marcus said quietly. He knew Ackerly heard him.
    “I am Powwell, of the Commune of Magicians. You called me across time for a purpose,” the new entity announced.
    “We called you to confront your father.” Marcus found the courage to speak first.
    “My father is not worth the time and trouble. Your true need and purpose must be great indeed to risk calling me forth from the void.”
    “Your father has also refused his next existence. He and his gold have cursed this place for nigh on three hundred years. We have called you to heal him,” Zolltarn answered the man’s plea. He had, after all initiated the spell.
    “You were the greatest healer of your time,” Jack added. “And you could not heal yourself because you never had the opportunity to confront your father. I thank the Stargods that the dragons gave my father the opportunity to continue his destiny as a dragon so that I could confront him and find myself in my heritage. We give you the same