The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume II

by Irene Radford

  Wounded men had screamed in agony. Their pain became her pain as she tried to heal a few. For every one she helped, three more appeared. There was never an end to the terrible wounds inflicted by other men. The numbers of the dead mounted with each breath.

  So many men cut down in their prime that the villages had no more men to plow and hunt and sire new babies.

  Nimbulan had helped bring peace to Coronnan. The people had not had enough time to recover from three generations of civil war and consider peace a way of life. A few new lives had been conceived to replace the dead. Not enough. Never enough.

  She grieved for the bleak future that stretched thinner than the wall. Tears tracked her physical face as well as her dragon mind. The Kardia trembled beneath her, sobbing for the new assaults on it, rich farmland turned into battlefields, orchards reduced to firewood for massive armies, widows and orphans left to starve. . . .

  The Kardia trembled again and the human Myrilandel felt the quake through her feet. Ley lines filled with power trembled beneath her. She knew how to tap the web of lines that crisscrossed Kardia Hodos like the mesh of fine lace and turn them into magic. She could channel the power of the Beginning Place into Nimbulan’s spell.

  Whatever fate awaited Myri lay in this well of power.

  She relaxed her physical body while viewing it from afar, above, and beyond reality. The energy flowed upward, through her receptive muscles and bones. Fire heated the Water in her blood. Air expelled from her lungs. The Kardia in her bones and muscles joined with the other three elements.

  The heat of her power continued to build within her body, beyond her ability to contain it. She breathed flame and still the fire grew. So did the magical wall.

  Her hand clutched at Nimbulan’s shoulder, needing to feel his skin one more time before she gave herself up to the elements. She moved her hand to his, where it rested on the table that organized and focused the spell.

  The power burned through her, burned up her fragile humanity. Only a dragon body could withstand the enormous heat she pulled out of the living Kardia.

  She couldn’t remain human and survive to finish the spell. Coronnan and her family needed the new barrier at the border, desperately.

  With love and regret she looked at her husband, felt his love being returned to her through the magical cord that would always connect them, no matter which body she used. Then she looked toward her baby. Queen Maarie Kaathliin cuddled her close, protecting her as well as Myri could.

  (Amaranth!) she called her love and farewell to her baby. The only baby she would ever bear.

  Then she gave herself up to the tremendous heat and friction that channeled through her.

  Better to live as a dragon and be able to watch and protect her loved ones than to die and break the chain of power that built an impenetrable border between Coronnan and her enemies.

  Part of Powwell watched Thorny hunch and relax in rhythm with the breathing of every magician in the circle of power. He had one hand on the shoulder of the magician to his left. His right hand—where Thorny perched—rested flat against the black glass so he couldn’t stroke his familiar’s spines. Thorny wiggled and rubbed his nose against Powwell in mute understanding of the problem.

  Only a small piece of Powwell’s awareness remained in the spell. The magicians of Coronnan didn’t need his mind, only his talent. If he could separate his thoughts enough to touch Thorny, then he could focus on Kalen.

  The communal vision of the growing wall between Coronnan and SeLenicca stood back, looking at the entire problem. Nimbulan’s genius as a Battlemage centered around his ability to view the entire field, thousands of men and multitudes of small skirmishes. Powwell needed a closer look at one particular section.

  The magic of the spell offered him the thoughts of every man sitting at the glass table. These men didn’t interest him. He needed to hone in on the thoughts of Moncriith and Yaassima. Only they could tell him what happened to Kalen.

  Thorny slid off Powwell’s hand onto the table. Only the tips of the hedgehog’s spines brushed his thumb. Was it enough of a separation? Powwell tapped Thorny’s sense of smell. Find the Bloodmage, he ordered himself and the hedgehog.

  Suddenly his awareness jerked away from the courtyard, beyond Coronnan City. He skimmed along the communal vision of the border. At a narrow pass far south of the primary action, Powwell’s augmented senses skidded to a halt, backed up and flew into the canyon.

  The smell of old blood, of hot rocks, and desert dryness lingered there.

  Powwell added sight to smell. Moncriith came into view, his red robe standing out among the dark uniforms of his troops.

  “Run forward. Everyone run forward!” Moncriith screamed as the magic barricade threatened to blockade the narrow pass. His men scrambled in all directions to avoid the pulsating energy most of them couldn’t see. Discipline dissolved, and the soldiers ignored their leaders. Sergeants and lieutenants abandoned their posts as well as their men.

  Steeds screamed and reared. They fought the traces that bound them to sledges and prevented flight.

  Yaassima slowed her steps in deliberate defiance of her captor’s orders. Strong rope, fortified with magic, encircled her neck in a tight noose and bound her hands before her body. If she moved so that her hands were low enough to secure her balance, she choked. If she raised her hands to ease the pressure on her throat, she stumbled with every step.

  The soldier assigned to her tugged sharply on the extension of rope, pulling her forward. She had to take several rapid, short steps to remain upright.

  Then she gave in to the Kardia and plunged forward, sideways across the path, careful to land on the unmarred side of her ruined face. The soldier had to stop or choke her to death. Moncriith had ordered her alive until he needed a sacrifice for a battle spell.

  Men tripped over her and sprawled across the path beneath the descending wall of magic.

  Powwell felt the Kardia tremble, both in the protected courtyard in the city and through the pass where Yaassima and Moncriith kept their thoughts shielded from him. He tried harder to penetrate Yaassima’s mind. She had no magic and shouldn’t be able to block him.

  Suddenly his vision split again. He watched a small shower of rock and dirt slide down the hillside into the pass through eyes that could only be Yaassima’s. But her thoughts and memories remained cloudy and indistinct. A blast of heat nearly shattered his partial rapport with her. The morning air of deep winter heated to the noon temperatures of high summer.

  Powwell thought she was remembering her fall into the pit, and he nearly shouted in triumph. At last, he’d see precisely what happened to Kalen.

  Then he realized the heat came from the Kardia itself. Heat akin to the molten lava in the pit. Yaassima was lying across a thin ley line that suddenly reversed its flow of energy and with great speed returned . . . returned where? Where did ley lines begin?

  No matter. The channel of the retreating magic scorched and collapsed, taking the crust of the Kardia with it. All around them, a spiderweb of cracks opened and spread. The slow spread of the ruptures in the land contrasted sharply with the frantic movements of the men. Movements that accomplished little in getting them out of the path of chaos and death.

  Powwell heard a few of their shouts and screams over the crashing of the Kardia.

  The soldiers jumped and scrambled away from the fissures that followed them in all directions. Some jumped forward, over the rising magic wall, many backward and up the sides of the hills. The hillsides crumbled beneath the trampling feet, showering more debris down into the pass. If they weren’t careful, they’d bury the pass and Moncriith with it.

  Yaassima laughed. Her burned and shattered body trembled with pain. Still she laughed. “You’re dead, Moncriith. You are dead already and don’t realize it!”

  “Come!” Moncriith hauled her up, none too gently, by the armpits. “Follow me, all of you.” The Bloodmage made a panicky dash for Coronnan, dragging Yaassima with him.
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  A few soldiers followed them. Most opted for retreat into SeLenicca.

  Yaassima continued to laugh at the crumbling of Moncriith’s grand invasion.

  Powwell tried to retreat. Yaassima wasn’t thinking of her fall into the pit. She thought only of watching Moncriith die.

  “Stop laughing,” Moncriith ordered as he paused for breath and looked back at the wall that separated him from the majority of his troops. He grasped Yaassima’s shoulders with clammy hands and shook her. Back and forth. Back and forth until her neck ceased to support her head. Back and forth until her senses whirled and the constant pain of her burns and aching joints intensified beyond endurance.

  And still Yaassima laughed. That evil laugh that took delight in watching others in pain. She raised her hands and encircled Moncriith’s neck with her preternaturally long fingers. She laughed as she pressed her thumbs into the Bloodmage’s vulnerable windpipe.

  Her laughter choked and gurgled when Moncriith moved his scarred and sweaty palms to capture her own throat.

  The magic wall spurted upward, engulfing Yaassima and Moncriith. They froze, trapped with the magic.

  Powwell yanked his mind out of Yaassima’s failing body. Then the wall collapsed again with uneven energy, crushing the Bloodmage and the Kaalipha into a bloody heap.

  The wall suddenly grew higher, threatening to capture Powwell’s mind. He willed himself back into his own body, back in the safety of Coronnan City.

  I failed, Thorny, he moaned. I didn’t learn anything about Kalen. I’ve failed her again.

  Chapter 40

  Myri’s vision returned to the body anchored to the Kardia. She didn’t need to see the magic, only fuel it. Wings broke free of the tight human skin on her back. Her neck elongated. The vestigial spinal bumps sharpened and shot outward as full horns. Purple-tipped crystal fur erupted from her too smooth skin. Fire rose. Fire glowed. Fire streamed forth as she absorbed more heat, and yet more heat from the Kardia.

  Shayla showed her a swelling in the wall at the border. Up and up it rose, separating the army. The power fueling the spell fluctuated up and down. The wall grew and collapsed. She channeled more power into the spell. The wall grew again, up and out. It flowed in a continuous line of energy.

  Only a few troops remained east of the wall inside Coronnan. Other men moved to go around the wall and found their passage blocked.

  Panicked by the separation, the soldiers in front turned and beat on the barrier, screaming for an opening to return them to the safety of their comrades.

  Up and out the barrier grew. It linked and looped across the tops of hills, blocking other passages.

  Myri drew more power from the draining well. The boiling lava of Hanassa’s living volcano fed the ley lines, draining out of the mountain, collapsing the caves of the pit and the dragongate. The ley lines that snaked across the land ceased flowing outward, reversed and drained back into the well. Scorched channels became burned-out husks in the wake of the reversed flow. And still she pulled power into the spell.

  At the border, soldiers hopped and danced to avoid the scorching Kardia beneath their feet.

  And still the wall grew.

  Myri grew with it.

  The wall was nearly complete.

  She was nearly transformed into her true dragon-self.

  A moment more and she would fly free of the bounds of gravity. Free and empty of love.

  Nimbulan watched with horror as his beautiful Myri stretched and expanded, draconic features becoming more and more pronounced. He had to stop her.

  How?

  This was the person she was born to be.

  He loved the woman she had chosen to be.

  They couldn’t separate now.

  The spell demanded his attention. He had to break away from the magic long enough to force Myrilandel back into her own form. The wall was nearly complete. They didn’t need so much power now. She could let go. If she would.

  “You can’t leave the circle,” Scarface hissed in his ear. “If any one of us breaks contact, the entire thing will collapse. We’ll be right back where we started from and too exhausted to start again.”

  “I know.” His talent was necessary to the completion of the defense of Coronnan.

  His talent.

  Once before, he had separated from his talent, left it in an inanimate object. He wasn’t sure if the glass table was totally inanimate, not the way the magic swirled through the eddies and waves of minerals.

  The hand upon his own clutched him with talons that grew by the minute. Myri’s bulk increased, threatening to crush his hand.

  If you break contact with the table, you’ll lose your talent forever.

  “I have to take that chance.” Quickly, he located the burning blue beacon behind his heart and pushed it into the table. Blue light joined the glittering black and gray. It melded with the combined talents of all the men sitting in the circle.

  Nimbulan slid his chair back a little, allowing Scarface to slide his hand from his shoulder onto Lyman’s. The circle remained complete, his talent remained in the combined mass of magic. Scarface’s mind took over the completion of the wall.

  Keeping his right hand on the table, Nimbulan grasped Myri’s still human face with his left. “Beloved. I need you. Our daughter needs you. Return to us, please.

  She wrenched herself away from him, tears flowing freely. “I must be a dragon to survive the power I give to this spell and Coronnan.”

  “The spell is nearly complete. Give back the power you drain from the Kardia.”

  She shook her head and stepped away from him. Only her talons remained in contact with the table and his talent embedded in it. The power continued to flow through her into the spell.

  Then she looked up to the skies where Shayla and the other dragons flew. A heavy film dropped over her eyes, protecting her from the brightness of the sun in the upper atmosphere.

  “You forsook dragonkind twenty years ago. Come back to the body and the life you chose. Please. I love you, Myrilandel. My life is incomplete without you.” Moisture gathered at the corners of his eyes. His heart threatened to wrench out of his body as she took another step backward.

  “I can never give you the sense of completeness and belonging you find in this Commune of magic. You belong here. I belong to the skies.”

  “No.” The words wrenched out of him. His throat nearly closed with unshed tears. “Myrilandel, I love you more than I love my magic.” Deliberately he lifted his hand from the table, leaving his talent forever embedded in the rare and perfect black glass.

  Myri’s concentration shattered with the touch of Nimbulan’s hand. Kardia, Air, Fire, and Water fractured and separated within her body and her mind. She shrank in size and awareness. Heat drained out of her, back into the ley lines. Dimly she knew the web of magical power stopped abruptly at the new border wall, unable to restore the empty channels to the west.

  The spell, the dragons, her own safety ceased to have importance as Nimbulan collapsed in her arms.

  The very touch of the air against her skin sent waves of burning pain throughout her body. She was back in her own body with only vestigial traces of her dragon heritage. Nimbulan’s clothing seemed to rub her raw. His weight on her aching muscles and stressed bones sent her to her knees. She couldn’t let go. She had to hold him, keep him close. The silver cord connecting them faded to invisibility.

  His aura looked different, dimmer, smaller, less dominated by the blue of his magical signature. The blue pulsed within the glass table, adding a different luster to the black minerals and the combined magic of the Commune.

  She didn’t know how his magic had detached from him and merged with the table, accessible to all in the Commune except him. Desperately she grabbed for the blue. But the glass was impervious to even dragon talons. Her now human fingernails couldn’t scratch the glass.

  “Nimbulan, beloved, what have you done to yourself?” She held him under the arms, sobbing her fears into him. �
�Don’t you dare die on me. I’ve just found you again. I can’t let you leave me again!”

  She fought to keep him from sliding to the ground. If she could hold him long enough, the silver cord would come to life again. It had to. Neither one of them was fully alive without that bond.

  Other hands reached out to relieve her of the burden. Familiar hands. Powwell, Scarface, and her brother Quinnault. She stared at the table, blinking away tears as the men settled her husband on the ground. The spell must be complete, for the magicians stood and stretched, talking quietly. They rapidly shifted their gaze from Nimbulan to the table and back again. Amazement touched their expressions.

  “How did he separate himself from his talent?” one man asked.

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” replied another. He shuddered at the concept of life without his magic.

  How would Nimbulan survive without the talent that had defined his life for so long?

  “Such a waste.” Lyman shook his head sadly. “He didn’t have to sacrifice everything. You would have returned to your human body once the spell was complete.”

  “Are you sure, old man?” Myri knelt at Nimbulan’s side, checking his pulse and breathing, loosening his tunic and shirt around his throat and chest.

  “Shayla has mated again. The chances are good that she carries purple-tipped twins again. You could not have stayed a dragon once they are born, for there can only be one purple-tipped dragon at a time.”

  “How do we know that I would be able to come back? You had to find a new body when you left the nimbus. My human body would have been destroyed by the power I channeled and the transformation.”

  Nimbulan’s chest shuddered, and his breath came in ragged gasps.

  “You tried to leave me,” he whispered through cracked and weary lips. “You tried to join the dragons. I feared you might ever since I learned of your heritage. I dreaded the day you would leave me.” He turned his eyes up to hers briefly, before they sagged wearily shut again. The fire had gone out of the green orbs.