The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

tucked Yaala behind him, keeping her hand in his. The tunnel didn’t offer enough room for them to walk side by side. She squeezed his hand in silent reassurance. He took another step forward and another.
    The wraith flowed backward at an equal pace. The edges of the mist took on a darker hue. Hints of rosy purple? Powwell sensed alarm growing within the bizarre figure.
    When they reached the big cavern, where the derelict machine sat like a monstrous spider presiding over the web of tunnels, he breathed a little easier. The wraith hadn’t harmed him yet. It seemed almost afraid of him. Or for him?
    In the distance he felt more than heard one small machine chugging away. That would explain the dim light. Little Liise, a docile generator who rarely broke down, worked at that particular rhythm. She supplied power to the lights down in the pit and nowhere else. The rest of Hanassa would be in darkness except for natural torches, candles, and oil lamps. Piedro, Kaaliph of Hanassa, wouldn’t have enough ’tricity to mimic magic as Yaassima had.
    “What do you want of us?” he asked the wraith quietly. His words echoed in the nearly silent cavern. They seemed strangely empty without the machines’ constant yeek kush kush sounds.
    The wraith twisted in upon itself. It raised both thin arms. The vague form suggested that it held its palms up, begging. The tail and wing illusions shrank. Was it writhing in pain? More like indecision or frustration.
    “Do you need our help?” Yaala asked, slipping up beside Powwell. She kept her hand in his. The moisture on her palm told him how nervous she was. She should be comfortable here in this labyrinth of tunnels, the only home she had ever really known.
    The wraith covered its face with ghostly hands and drifted apart, as mist before sunlight.
    “What do you suppose she wanted?” Powwell breathed a sigh of relief.
    “She?”
    “I guess. I had the suggestion of a female beneath all that haze. I don’t know why.” He shrugged, not knowing how to examine the feminine feel of the wraith’s pleading. He didn’t mention the dragon illusion. Most likely it was just that, an illusion meant to trigger a response of respect and awe.
    “Let’s get out of here.” Yaala tugged at his hand.
    Powwell followed her slowly, oddly reluctant to leave the wraith that had once haunted him. He never thought he’d be hesitant to depart the inner chambers of the pit and the slavery he’d known here. Suddenly, he became aware of the miles of kardia pressing down upon him.
    His breathing became shallow and labored. He needed air. He needed sunshine. He needed OUT! Stargods, I hope the gate to the palace is open and unguarded.
    Satiric laughter echoed in his mind. A flicker of white tantalized his peripheral vision. Did the wraith taunt him with foreknowledge of the lack of exits?

    Midafternoon, queen’s solar, Palace Reveta Tristile, Coronnan City
     
    “Random matings, solely for the sake of conceiving children are no longer appropriate for Spring Festival,” Katie stated firmly to the five ladies gathered in her private solar.
    “But, your Grace, Spring Festival has always been a time of betrothal. How are our young people to find the right mate if not in the rituals designed by the Stargods?” Lady Balthazaan turned pale with shock.
    Katie doubted her Terran ancestors had contrived the ritual dance around a maypole—Festival Pylons they called them here—where the men danced in one direction and the women opposite, changing partners on the whim of the patterns called by village elders. Whichever partner one ended the dance with was their mate for the evening. If that one night together resulted in a child, then the union was blessed by the Stargods and the couple married on or before the Solstice. If no child was conceived, then the couple parted and tried again the next year.
    Some of her ancestors probably sanctioned, maybe even participated in the dance. Few of them would have had the imagination to create it.
    “The selection of a life mate is too important to leave to young people,” Lady Hanic added. Like her husband, she always waited to see what others thought, then formed her opinion to match that of the strongest faction. “Such decisions are best determined by the Stargods.”
    The remaining three women nodded their heads in vigorous agreement.
    “Did you participate in a Festival dance?” Katie asked all of the women.
    “Of course not!” Lady Balthazaan