The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

that Rollett hadn’t had enough time to truly know anything about him except his unusual attachment to the girl Kalen, his half sister.
    “I’ll show you what I can,” Yaala finally said after spending a long moment looking longingly toward the machines and back toward the passageway into the city.
    Which did she prefer, the machines or the power of the Kaalipha? He wished he could trust her. Or at least understand her motives. Later. He’d know everything about her before he put his next plan into action.
    Rollett listened carefully to her detailed explanation of generators, transformers, resistors, and currents. Her rather plain face glowed with a special beauty when she spoke—almost like a proud mama showing off her numerous children.
    A piece of him wanted to reach out and teach her how to trust again. But he didn’t dare trust her, so why should she trust him?
    He shook off the emotion and concentrated on her lecture—sermon?
    Generators made the mysterious ’tricity from steam. Transformers changed the raw energy into a usable form, as a magician transformed dragon magic. Currents flowed through the wires. Magic flowed through a man’s blood.
    “I’ve used ley line magic to power my talent, and I’ve used dragon magic. ’Tricity isn’t so different,” he said.
    “I thought the same thing,” Powwell agreed. “But I’ve touched this power, and I don’t think it’s safe for men to use.”
    “Yaassima’s tricks with lights, making the altar stone disappear, and her sudden appearances on the dais were all illusions powered by this ’tricity.” Rollett confirmed Yaala’s lesson.
    “Yes.” Yaala nodded slowly. She kept her eyes on Rollett, searching his face for something.
    “Then we don’t need magic, we need ’tricity to overpower Piedro and reclaim the city.” Rollett mulled over a number of possibilities in his mind. Magic and ’tricity. ’Tricity and magic. Where did one end and the other begin?
    Ideas begin to awaken in his brain. With ideas came plans and hope. But first he needed more information.
    “I wonder if we can use ’motes to stabilize the dragongate?” he muttered.
    Powwell’s eyes went wide with speculation. “The gate worked often and well while the generators ran continuously. Now the dragongate has shifted, stalled. Maybe it doesn’t have enough power to open more frequently, and it doesn’t have the power to keep it locked in one time span.”
    Yaala shook her head in dismissal of the argument. “Yaassima had ’motes—triggers—hidden all over the palace, some in her jewelry,” Yaala continued. “The ’tricity never touched her body, only the ’motes. She used them to channel the ’tricity into specific chores. The hollow rods used on the gate lock and to stun people at the entrance to the palace were also a kind of ’mote.”
    Rollett had experienced those hollow rods. The guards struck a special rock with the wand to make them emit an ear-piercing sound that froze mundanes for long moments—but only made magicians uncomfortable. The guards used that time to search suspects and those who wished to enter Hanassa. They also used the wands as a kind of detector for metal weapons. An effective security device.
    Yaassima’s guards must have had some kind of protection from the sounds. Rollett wondered how to mimic that for his men.
    “None of these tricks will help us get out of Hanassa,” he sighed in resignation. There had to be another way; ’tricity was the key. “We can’t slap a wand to stun the guards. Half of them are Rovers and immune to the sound.” With their mind-to-mind connections, all Rovers had the possibility of magic even without the specific talent. “We need a dragon to dig us free or fly us over the rim of the crater.”
    “None of the dragons will come near Hanassa,” Powwell reminded him.
    “Yeah, I know. They say that Hanassa, the renegade dragon, still rules here,” Rollett replied.
    “How can that be?” Yaala looked at them both, eyes wide with wonder. But her pointed chin trembled with a touch of fear. “My ancestor took human form and founded this city over seven hundred years ago. Once in human form, he had to live and die a normal life span.”
    “Dragons are very long-lived. Lyman told me that a dragon can live a thousand years or more.” Rollett began to pace. He circled the generator, the one Yaala called Liise, touching it occasionally, trying to understand the how and why of Hanassa the renegade