The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

weren’t there the day before. Then he spoke demon words. He called up the storm and drove my barge onto a bar of his own making.”
    “Is this true, boy?” Scarface wove his fingers in an intricate pattern—his habitual gesture for seeking information and truth.
    “No, it is not true. I maintained a light trance so that I could understand the conversations in five different languages. I would never call up a storm or create a bar of debris. Raanald tried to navigate around the bar, but it caught the rudder and snapped it. Then the waves caught us crosswise and threw the ambassador overboard. I found him plastered against one of the old tree snags from the last sea battle by the currents.”
    “Then why didn’t my depth finder warn of the bar’s proximity?” The pilot trembled all over in his anger.
    “It did. You kept changing course erratically because you didn’t trust it.”
    Stunned silence filled the room.
    Bessel looked from Scarface to Nimbulan and back to the pilot, seeking a response, any kind of response.
    “If you do not trust the machine, why should we use it at all?” King Quinnault asked. “Is the machine faulty?” He looked to his queen.
    She shrugged her shoulders. The machine had come from her people, from distant and mythical Terrania.
    The pilot glared at Bessel, his mouth clamped firmly shut.
    “Then perhaps the pilot is the one who must answer for my husband’s death,” Lady Rosselaara said. “He will speak readily as my blade lops off pieces of his anatomy.”
    The pilot straightened his shoulders and stared back at her with all of the arrogance of his guild backing him up. He knew himself too valuable to Coronnan for King Quinnault to give him over to foreign justice.
    “Answers will be found, Lady,” Nimbulan intervened. “But by our methods. If anyone is found negligent in this matter, justice will be served.”
    “I don’t care for justice, Magician. I care only for vengeance.”
    “Will the death of an innocent bring your husband back to life?”
    “The death of a guilty man will give me back my husband’s honor.”
    “Then if any are found guilty, you will be informed of his fate.” Nimbulan returned her determined glare. “Go home now, Lady Rosselaara. Go home and grieve. Prepare your husband for his funeral rites.”
    “You have one day to deliver the guilty man to my door so that he may be buried beneath my husband. If he is not dead at this hour tomorrow, I will kill him.” Lady Rosselaara turned on her heel and marched out of the room. The litter bearers exited with her, carrying their fallen ambassador. Her honor guard sheathed their swords, wheeled as one, and followed her.
    No one needed to utter the “Or else,” that followed her final words.
    “Now what?” Quinnault asked of no one in particular. “We have conflicting testimony. We have the problem of an untrustworthy depth finder. I am open to suggestions, gentlemen.”
    “I never liked having to rely on any machine,” Queen Maarie Kaathliin said. She shifted the baby to her shoulder, easier now that the foreigners had left. “We should learn to read the mudflats another way.”
    “Such as?” Scarface intoned, stepping forward to stand beside the king, his rightful place as Senior Magician. The place that Nimbulan resumed all too easily. Wind-drift held back.
    “Where is your famous magic, Master Scarface?” The queen turned her gaze to the ugly man who had forsaken life as a Battlemage and mercenary to join the Commune. “Why can’t your magicians plumb the depths of the Bay and chart the course for the barges?”
    “We have tried, Madame.” Scarface looked more fierce than regretful. He kept his accusatory gaze upon Bessel.
    The young magician wished he could disappear. He tried fading into the background—a trick Nimbulan used often. But he couldn’t tell if it worked.
    “Again and again, we have tried,” Scarface continued, finally looking away from Bessel toward the queen. “But dragon magic, legal magic, is more in tune with the elements of Air and Fire than with Water and Kardia. To delve into Water and Kardia deep enough to chart the channels we need rogue magic. Upon pain of death or exile, we cannot violate our covenant with Coronnan. Only dragon magic can be combined and amplified by many magicians working together. Only dragon magic can be controlled with ethics and honor.” The Senior Magician repeated the first rule of the Commune, staring back at Bessel,