Accidental Sorcerer (29 page)

Tears of shame and misery rolled down his face. He wept until he was exhausted then fell asleep again. When he woke a second time it was to find fresh clothes folded neatly by his head, a jug of sweet water and some ripe peaches. His skin was whole. No fissures. No blisters. No blood, bile, pus or seepage of any kind and his nerves, so recently ablaze, were quiet once more. His hair and fingernails had all grown back.

He found a note from Lional, written in a grandiose hand.
There now, Gerald. Doesn't that feel better? How silly you were to defy me for so long.

Starving, thirsty, he ate the peaches and drank the jug dry. Pulled on the clean shirt and trousers then sat in the armchair Lional had left behind. He wondered how long he'd been down here, and discovered he had no idea. With no sunrise and sunset to guide him, just the constant illumination from Lional's magical lights, he was adrift in time. The whole world might have ended and he'd never know it.

Did Reg ever come back? Did she even make it home in one piece? I guess I'll never know now. Reg, I'm sorry. I failed you.

The thought of her dead was almost unbearable. The thought of her thinking
him
dead just as bad.

If she did make it back would Lional tell me? He says he needs her. Does that mean she's safe, if she's here? If he's got her, would he hurt her to keep me in line? Would he hurt me again to make her do his will?

Yes he would. Lional would do anything to get what he wanted. He had no conscience. He had no soul.

If Reg came back, did she bring Monk with her? Is he a prisoner somewhere too, tortured as I was? Corrupted as I was? Or is he dead? If he's dead ... if they're both dead ...

He had no way of knowing. Not until Lional came back and he asked. Even then, Lional might lie. Would probably lie.

How did this happen? How did I let it happen? Wiry didn't I stop it?

He knew the answers. They made him sick.

Because I was stubborn. Because I was greedy. Because all I cared about was being the great wizard.

Yeah. Well. He wasn't so great now, was he?

Desperate for a distraction from his self-loathing thoughts he tried casting a spell, a simple colour change to make his blue shirt green. It didn't work.

Clearly Lional's lodestone remained
in
operation. He looked and looked, but couldn't find it. Nor could he find the door out of the cave. Lional must have masked that too.

Lional, who wielded the power of five First Grade wizards and had read
Grummen's Lexicon
and wanted a dragon.

He returned to the chair, despairing.

Once upon a time there lived a wizard named Gerald, who'd truly believed the worst thing that could ever happen to him was accidentally destroying a staff factory.

What an
idiot.
A gullible, naive, ignorant
idiot.

Well. That Gerald was dead. Burned to ashes in the crucible of Lional's cave. He'd been replaced by someone who might look like him and sound like him but in reality was hollow inside except for the things he knew and the memories that mocked him. Cruel, terrible memories ...

He tried to go back to sleep but no matter what he did, how hard he pounded his fists against his forehead or ground the heels of his hands into his tightly shut eyes, he couldn't escape.

It was a relief when the door in the cave wall opened and Lional reappeared.'Gerald!' he cried as he sealed the door behind him. 'You're awake! How splendid. Did you sleep well?'

What do you think?'

Lional chose not to notice his surly tone. He smiled.
'Excellent!

With a grunt of effort he stood. 'What time is it? How long have I been here?'

'It's six o'clock in the morning and you've been here for nearly nine days.'

Nine days.
'Reg? Has she come back? Is she all right?'

Lional sighed. 'Regrettably, no. She hasn't come back, which doubtless means that she's dead. Now that's enough small talk. We've an enormous amount of work to do and we've already wasted a lot of time, so I'd like to get started straight away'

Gerald felt his heart thud dully against his ribs.
Dead? No. Not Reg. Not after so long, after everything she's survived. I won't believe it. Not until I see her body with my own eyes.

Reg is not dead.

'Gerald?' said Lional, eyebrows raised. 'Is something the matter? You've
such
a look on your face ...'

For a moment he was so choked with disbelief he couldn't speak. Who was this man?
What
was he, that he could stand there after every hideous thing he'd done, stand there with his perfect grooming and his exquisite clothes and an actual look of concern on his face and ask, quite genuinely,
Is something the matter?

Dazed, he backed up until he bumped into the cave wall. What was he thinking? Was he
mad?
How could he even
consider
helping Lional? Lional was a monster. A perversion.

If
I help Lional what docs that make me?

Lional frowned. 'Oh dear.' Step by deliberate step the king closed the distance between them until only scant inches separated their bodies.

Rested a hand against the rock on either side of his face and leaned close. His breath smelled of peppermint. 'Now Gerald, I do hope you're not thinking of changing your mind. That would make me very disappointed. And if you believe nothing else I say, believe this. Disappointing me would be the biggest mistake of your life.'

Gerald closed his eyes. This was it. His last chance to reclaim his dignity, his self-respect, his honour. What was the point of living if your life was paid for with a broken oath? In his hands rested the fate of two nations, of thousands upon thousands of innocent lives. How could he buy his own comfort with such precious coin?

I can't.

Stomach churning, he opened his eyes.

'Think before you speak, Gerald,' Lional advised.'For you must know by now the true heart beating in my breast. If you defy me I will hurt you in ways no man could tell.'

'I don't care,' he whispered. 'There's nothing you can do that could be worse than knowing I'm forsworn.'

Lional sighed. 'Ah. Well, Gerald, I'm afraid that's where you're wrong.' A heartbeat later he was holding an oval-shaped hand mirror, bright as a full moon.
His
mirror, from the dresser in his palace suite.'Let me show you.'

Against his will Gerald looked at his reflection and saw the dreadful changes that had been wrought in his face. Then his hollow-cheeked, haunted-eyed image faded and instead he was looking at a different self. Hanging in midair, spread-eagled and held fast by invisible chains. His head was thrown back, the great tendons of his neck distorted, distended, and his mouth gaped wide in a soundless scream. His shirt hung in rags and the skin and muscle covering the left side of his chest was missing. Through the gleaming cage of his ribs he could see his heart frantically beating, pumping his blood in a scarlet river from the mouths of countless wounds hacked into his prisoned flesh. Some kind of serpent, green and glistening, was wrapped around his right leg. Another clasped his right arm. They were eating him. Tearing great bloody mouthfuls of him from the bone. And as they chewed and swallowed and hissed, his ravaged flesh grew back again, swift as blizzarding snow. The serpents bared their razor teeth, bent their bright-scaled heads, and filled their bellies again. And again. And again.

Against all possibility he felt the pain.

Bones melting with horror he turned away, cheek pressed hard to the rough cave wall.

Lional's remorseless finger beneath his chin turned him back to the nightmare. 'There is no mercy in me and I won't be denied. My kingdom has suffered ignominy for seven centuries and if you don't make me a dragon, Gerald,
you
will suffer for even longer.' He raised the mirror. 'Defy me and this will be your reward, forever and ever unto the end of time. And
nobody
will come to save you. I promise. So, Gerald. Do you defy me?
Do you?'

He dragged his eyes away from that unspeakable image of suffering and forced himself to meet Lional's pitiless gaze.

Forever and ever unto the end of time.

Courage died, brief and blazing as a falling star.

'No,' he whispered. 'I don't. I'll do it, Lional. I'll make you a dragon. Please ... don't hurt me again.'

'Of course I won't, Gerald,' said Lional and banished the mirror. 'Provided you continue to be reasonable.'

Reasonable.
The word was nearly his undoing. Fingers compressed into fists held his grief at bay .. . but only just.

At least my parents will never know.

With a theatrical flourish Lional summoned a wooden crate from ... elsewhere ... and stood there looking at it with a gleaming gloating smile. Then he looked up.

'Oh Gerald, you're not
sulking,
are you?
Don't,
I implore you. It's desperately unattractive. Now come here, quickly. I've something to show you.'

Clumsily, as though his muscles had forgotten their purpose, he joined Lional beside the crate.

Two feet long and one foot wide, its base and four sides were solid timber; the top consisted of narrow slats nailed in place to allow ventilation but no escape. From inside the box came the rustle of claws in dry grass and a long sibilant hiss. He glimpsed a vivid scaled hide striped crimson and emerald. Black eyes, malevolently glinting. A crest of spines, each sharp tip oozing a viscous green fluid. The creature opened its mouth to hiss again, revealing row after row of diamond-bright teeth and a long slimy tongue. It took a deep breath and spat something crimson at the bars keeping it caged in the box; the wood smoked and belched green fire but remained intact.

'Isn't she beautiful?' crooned Lional. 'She's a Bearded Spitting Fire Lizard from the darkest jungles of Lower Limpopo. You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get her. I mean, Bondaningo was almost as stubborn as you've been when it came to helping me. But of course he saw reason in the end. Amongst other things. I think she'll make a splendid dragon, don't you?'

Speech still beyond him, Gerald could only shrug.

Lional looked at him sharply. 'I said
no sulking,
Professor. If you can't stop by yourself I have a remedy of my own we could try .. .'

He felt his guts spasm. 'I'm not sulking, I'm -'
Craven. Beaten. Pathetic.
'Tired. That's all. I'm just tired.'

'Not too tired to make me my dragon, I hope?'

'Look. Lional. What if-' He cleared his throat. 'What if I can't do it? Transmogrification on this level is almost unheard of. The mass conversion ratio, the inverse thaumaturgical fluctuations ...' He gestured at the crate. 'That's a big lizard but compared to a dragon it's
tiny.
What you're asking for might not be metaphysically possible to achieve no matter who was trying.'

'Well, for your sake, Gerald, I hope that's not the case,' said Lional coldly.

He flinched. 'AH right then. Say I can turn this lizard into a dragon. How are you going to control it? It's not like Tavistock. He may have the body of a lion but in his head he's still your cat. This lizard is a wild animal. It's lethal, a killing machine. It'd kill us both now if it could. What hope is there of controlling it once it's dragon-sized?'

Lional's smile was smug. 'I was wondering when that would occur to you, Gerald. Don't worry. I really have thought this through very carefully'

With a pointed finger and a sharp command he collapsed the lizard's crate then immobilised the creature before it could recover from its surprise and start spitting. Next he snapped his fingers and produced a small knife with a wicked blade and a carved ivory handle.

Staring, Gerald felt sluggish memory stir. 'You can't - you're not actually going to risk -'

'The
Tantigliani sympathetica?'
said Lional, glancing at him. 'Well spotted, Gerald. And yes. I am.'

'You
can'tl
Tantigliani was mad!'

Without hesitation or any sign of pain Lional sliced open his left palm from one side to the other.

'Tantigliani,' he said, as thick red blood welled from the wound,'was a misunderstood genius.'

'He was an
assassinl
Over a hundred people died because of him!'

Lional shrugged. 'Perhaps, but he was a
brilliant
assassin. Only at the very end did anyone so much as suspect that the horses, the dogs and the bulls that killed their owners were anything but deranged creatures run amok.'

No. No. This was
beyond
insane. 'Lional, you can't do this! What if you lose control? This lizard's not a
horse,
it's not
domesticated.
How can you hope to impose your will upon -'

'I don't hope, Gerald,' said Lional, serene. 'I know' Crouching beside the unmoving lizard he fisted his wounded hand above it. Blood flowed between his fingers and down his wrist, staining his white silk shirtsleeve.
'Absorbidato.'
Carefully, his expression intent, he dripped the blood over the lizard's hide in a complex pattern of splatters and blotches. Within seconds of it touching the brilliantly hued scales the blood vanished.

'You think all those stolen
potentias
will protect you,' said Gerald, chilled with fresh horror. 'What if you're wrong?'

'I'm not,' said Lional. He stroked a fingertip along the lizard's length from nose to tail.
'Manifesti retartol
Then he rose smoothly to his feet. Lifting his wounded hand to eye level he turned it palm outwards to show the gaping crimson slash, whispered a command, and smiled again as the still-dripping blood crawled backwards into the wound and his flesh knitted itself whole again. 'As you can see, Gerald, my control is absolute.'